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The global economic financial crisis has reignited public interest
全球金融危機讓人們對早在亞當·斯密時代
in something that's actually one of the oldest questions in economics, dating back to at least before Adam Smith.
就被提出的一個古老的經濟學問題重新產生了興趣：
And that is, why is it that countries with seemingly similar economies and institutions can display radically different savings behavior?
“為什么經濟規模和政治體制看起來相似的國家之間，國民的儲蓄習慣差別如此之大？”
Now, many brilliant economists have spent their entire lives working on this question,
已經有很多經濟學大師花畢生精力研究了這個問題，
and as a field we've made a tremendous amount of headway and we understand a lot about this.
取得了很大的進展，我們對這個問題也有了很深的認識。
What I'm here to talk with you about today is an intriguing new hypothesis
我今天要跟大家分享的是一個很有意思的假說，
and some surprisingly powerful new findings that I've been working on
我研究了人們說的語言的（語法）結構
about the link between the structure of the language you speak and how you find yourself with the propensity to save.
和他們的存錢習慣之間的關系，并得到了一些意外的新發現。
Let me tell you a little bit about savings rates, a little bit about language, and then I'll draw that connection.
我們先介紹國民儲蓄比率，再介紹語言差別，然后我們把這兩者聯系起來。
Let's start by thinking about the member countries of the OECD, or the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development.
我們從OECD國家開始考慮，OECD即“經濟合作與發展組織”。
OECD countries, by and large, you should think about these as the richest, most industrialized countries in the world.
基本上OECD包含的都是世界上最富有的工業化國家。
And by joining the OECD, they were affirming a common commitment to democracy, open markets and free trade.
而且加入OECD組織的國家都需要符合民主政府、開放市場和自由貿易等要求。
Despite all of these similarities, we see huge differences in savings behavior.
雖然這些國家都是很相似的，但是他們的存儲行為差別很大。
So all the way over on the left of this graph,
看這張圖的左邊，
what you see is many OECD countries saving over a quarter of their GDP every year,
你會看到多數OECD成員國年儲蓄率超過GDP的1/4，
and some OECD countries saving over a third of their GDP per year.
而部分成員國的年儲蓄率達到了GDP的1/3。
