評論
打印
So imagine that you're a retired household in Belgium and someone comes to your front door.
想象一下你是一個比利時的退休老人，有一天有人跑來敲你家的門。
"Excuse me, would you mind if I peruse your stock portfolio?
“打擾了，你能跟我說下你的股票投資情況么？
Do you happen to know how much your house is worth? Do you mind telling me?
你知道自己的房子值多少錢么？方便告訴我么？
Would you happen to have a hallway that's more than 10 meters long?
你的走廊有10米這么長么？
If you do, would you mind if I timed how long it took you to walk down that hallway?
如果有，你能走一次讓我看看需要多長時間么？
Would you mind squeezing as hard as you can, in your dominant hand, this device, so I can measure your grip strength?
你能否用你的慣用手，用力握這個設備，讓我測試一下你的握力？
How about blowing into this tube so I can measure your lung capacity?"
你能否吹一下這個管子，讓我測量一下你的肺活量？
The survey takes over a day.
一天過去了。
Combine that with a Demographic and Health Survey collected by USAID in developing countries in Africa, for example,
將這些數據與USAID（美國國際開發署）在非洲發展中國家的人口健康統計數據結合
which that survey actually can go so far as to directly measure the HIV status of families living in, for example, rural Nigeria.
USAID的數據很詳細，例如，尼日利亞農村家庭中HIV感染情況等一手信息。
Combine that with a world value survey,
將這些數據與世界價值調查（value survey）結合，
which measures the political opinions and, fortunately for me, the savings behaviors
后者統計政治觀點和，很幸運的，
of millions of families in hundreds of countries around the world.
全世界上百個國家上億家庭的存儲行為信息。
Take all of that data, combine it, and this map is what you get.
獲得所有這些數據，綜合起來，你就得到這樣的一張圖。
What you find is nine countries around the world that have significant native populations
你會發現全球范圍內有九個國家，其國民中有相當多的人使用
which speak both futureless and futured languages.
沒有區分將來時態和區分將來時態的語言。
And what I'm going to do is form statistical matched pairs
我接下來要做的就是通過統計匹配的方式
between families that are nearly identical on every dimension that I can measure,
找到各個方面都近似相同的家庭，
and then I'm going to explore whether or not the link between language and savings holds
然后去看看在控制了這些變量之后
even after controlling for all of these levels.
語言和儲蓄之間是否還存在著聯系。
