Geographical Origins and Economic Consequences of Language Structures

Assaf Sarid and Oded Galor

No WP2017/4, Working Papers from University of Haifa, Department of Economics

Abstract: This research explores the economic causes and consequences of language structures. It advances the hypothesis and establishes empirically that variations in pre-industrial geographical characteristics that were conducive to higher returns to agricultural investment, gender gaps in agricultural productivity, and the emergence of hierarchical societies, are at the root of existing cross-language variations in the structure of the future tense and the presence of grammatical gender and politeness distinctions. Moreover, the research suggests that while language structures have largely re ected past human experience and ancestral cultural traits, they have independently a ected human behavior and economic outcomes.

Keywords: Comparative Development; Cultural Evolution; Language Structure; Future Tense; Po- liteness Distinctions; Grammatical Gender; Human Capital; Education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D01 D03 J16 Z10 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 63
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo, nep-gro and nep-his
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Geographical Origins and Economic Consequences of Language Structures (2017)
Working Paper: Geographical Origins and Economic Consequences of Language Structures (2016)
Working Paper: Geographical Origins and Economic Consequences of Language Structures (2016)
Working Paper: Geographical Origins and Economic Consequences of Language Structures (2016)
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