The global economic financial crisis has reignited public interest全球金融危机让人们对早在亚当·斯密时代in something that&#39s actually one of the oldest questions in economics, dating back to at least before Adam Smith.就被提出的一个古老的经济学问题重新产生了兴趣：And that is, why is it that countries with seemingly similar economies and i

So imagine that you&#39re a retired household in Belgium and someone comes to your front door.想象一下你是一个比利时的退休老人，有一天有人跑来敲你家的门。&quotExcuse me, would you mind if I peruse your stock portfolio?“打扰了，你能跟我说下你的股票投资情况么？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钱么？方便

Holding down the right flank of the OECD, all the way on the other side, is Greece.在图右侧的这些国家，最右边的是希腊，And what you can see is that over the last 25 years,我们看到在过去25年Greece has barely managed to save more than 10 percent of their GDP.希腊的国民储蓄率刚超过10%。It should be noted, of course, that the United States

Interestingly enough, when you start to crank the data,有意思的是，当你开始收集数据时，these pockets of futureless language speakers all around the world turn out to be, by and large, some of the world&#39s best savers.你就会发现这些说没有将来时态的语言的国家，很大程度上，恰恰是最喜欢储蓄的国家。Just to give you a hint of that, let&#39s look back at tha

For example, most other Germanic language speakers例如，说日尔曼语系的人feel completely comfortable talking about rain tomorrow by saying, &quotMorgen regnet es,&quot会很自然的用以下的话表达明天下雨：“Morgen regnet es”quite literally to an English ear, &quotIt rain tomorrow.&quot说英语的人听了就类似“It rain tomorrow.”This led me, as a b

And in fact, if I want to speak correctly, Chinese forces me to constantly think about it.事实上，如果要我不弄错的话，我就要不断的去想这之间的关系。Now, that fascinated me endlessly as a child,这是小时候让我很好奇的事情，but what fascinates me even more today as an economist而现在我作为一个经济学家更加好奇的是is that some of these same differences carry throu

Now how can we think about health behaviors to think about savings?我们能将健康相关的行为比作储蓄行为么？Well, think about smoking, for example. Smoking is in some deep sense negative savings.例如，吸烟这个事情，吸烟可以看作反向的储蓄。If savings is current pain in exchange for future pleasure, smoking is just the opposite.如果储蓄是增加当下的痛苦增加未来

What are the characteristics we can control for?我们能够控制那些特征？Well I&#39m going to match families on country of birth and residence,我考虑的匹配包括出生地和居住地，the demographics -- what sex, their age -- their income level within their own country,人口信息--性别、年龄--相对居住国的收入水平，their educational achievement, a lot about t