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ToolsClist, Paul (2025) The Common Problem of Bad Controls in Tests of the Linguistic Savings Hypothesis:A Comment on Ayres et al (PNAS, 2023) and related literature. Journal of Comments and Replications in Economics. ISSN 2749-988X (In Press)
Full text not available from this repository. (Request a copy)Abstract
Languages encode the future differently, such that languages can be sorted into different types. When making future predictions, Strong Future Time Reference (FTR) languages often require marking future-time, whereas weak FTR languages do not. The Linguistic Savings Hypothesis predicts this difference will affect people’s patience, perhaps because weak FTR languages make the future feel closer. Three recent articles have reported significant effects on individual patience as well as firm-level income smoothing and investment efficiency. However each paper includes controls which increase bias, rather than reduce it. Due to data sharing limitations, I can only publish a reanalysis in one case; fixing the problem leaves smaller and non-significant effects. This problem does not affect all research on the Linguistic Savings Hypothesis, but the effects are not as large or widespread as previously reported.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Additional Information: | Data and Code: All data and code is available, see Clist (2025) |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | linguistic savings hypothesis,linguistic relativity,sapir-whorf hypothesis,language,patience |
| Faculty \ School: | Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Global Development (formerly School of International Development) |
| UEA Research Groups: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Centres > Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Sciences Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Behavioural and Experimental Development Economics Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Impact Evaluation |
| Depositing User: | LivePure Connector |
| Date Deposited: | 18 Nov 2025 15:30 |
| Last Modified: | 18 Nov 2025 15:30 |
| URI: | https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/101061 |
| DOI: | issn:2749-988X |
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