Patience may be the decisive factor why some countries are richer than others. This is one of the key findings from a large-scale research project initiated by briq director Armin Falk. “To create wealth, you have to invest in equipment and human capital,” says Falk. “The more patient people are and the more they save, the more they can invest — and they become that much more productive and rich.”
The survey asking 80,000 people in 76 countries about their economic preferences shows that the most patient people are in Scandinavia, western Europe and English-speaking countries, although there is a difference between north and south within Europe. These and more results will soon be published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics. Interested researchers will then be able to access the data via the briq homepage.