Strong-future-time reference (FTR) languages require speakers to grammatically mark future events, while weak-FTR languages do not. Using data from 34 countries, we find that firms in countries where strong-FTR languages are spoken have fewer patent counts and citations than those in countries where weak-FTR languages are spoken. Further evidence shows that strong-FTR languages affect inventors’ perceptions and beliefs about future rewards from innovation. Moreover, due to interactions between people speaking different languages, globalization attenuates the negative impact of language FTR on innovation. To further support these findings, we provide evidence from a single country with a multilingual environment to control for omitted country-level characteristics. Our study emphasizes the impact of language on corporate innovation and sheds light on the importance of informal institutions in economic outcomes.

中文翻译：

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语言与创新

强未来参考 (FTR) 语言要求说话者在语法上标记未来事件，而弱 FTR 语言则不需要。使用来自 34 个国家的数据，我们发现使用强 FTR 语言的国家的公司的专利数量和引用次数少于使用弱 FTR 语言的国家的公司。进一步的证据表明，强 FTR 语言会影响发明者对未来创新回报的看法和信念。此外，由于说不同语言的人之间的互动，全球化减弱了语言 FTR 对创新的负面影响。为了进一步支持这些发现，我们提供了来自具有多语言环境的单一国家的证据，以控制遗漏的国家级特征。