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Do Linguistic Structures Affect Human Capital? The Case of Pronoun Drop

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  • Horst Feldmann

Abstract

This paper empirically studies the human capital effects of grammatical rules that permit speakers to drop a personal pronoun when used as a subject of a sentence. By de‐emphasizing the significance of the individual, such languages may perpetuate ancient values and norms that give primacy to the collective, inducing governments and families to invest relatively little in education because education usually increases the individual's independence from both the state and the family and may thus reduce the individual's commitment to these institutions. Carrying out both an individual‐level and a country‐level analysis, the paper indeed finds negative effects of pronoun‐drop languages. The individual‐level analysis uses data on 114,894 individuals from 75 countries over 1999‐2014. It establishes that speakers of such languages have a lower probability of having completed secondary or tertiary education, compared with speakers of languages that do not allow pronoun drop. The country‐level analysis uses data from 101 countries over 1972‐2012. Consistent with the individual‐level analysis, it finds that countries where the dominant languages permit pronoun drop have lower secondary school enrollment rates. In both cases, the magnitude of the effect is substantial, particularly among females.

Suggested Citation

  • Horst Feldmann, 2019. "Do Linguistic Structures Affect Human Capital? The Case of Pronoun Drop," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(1), pages 29-54, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:kyklos:v:72:y:2019:i:1:p:29-54
    DOI: 10.1111/kykl.12190
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    Cited by:

    1. Clist, Paul & Hong, Ying-yi, 2023. "Do international students learn foreign preferences? The interplay of language, identity and assimilation," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    2. Dutta, Nabamita & Sobel, Russell S., 2023. "Trust and attitudes toward income inequality: Does individualism matter?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    3. Cai, Meina & Caskey, Gregory W. & Cowen, Nick & Murtazashvili, Ilia & Murtazashvili, Jennifer Brick & Salahodjaev, Raufhon, 2022. "Individualism, economic freedom, and charitable giving," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 868-884.
    4. Tai-Sen He & Yohanes E. Riyanto & Saori C. Tanaka & Katsunori Yamada, 2020. "Pronoun drop and prosocial behavior: experimental evidence from Japan," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 6(1), pages 13-25, June.
    5. Mevlut Tatliyer & Nurullah Gur, 2022. "Individualism and Working Hours: Macro-Level Evidence," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 159(2), pages 733-755, January.
    6. Tamara Bogatzki & David Stadelmann & Benno Torgler, 2019. "Guiltily Indebted? How a Word Can Affect Individual Borrowing," CREMA Working Paper Series 2019-03, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).

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