Narratives drive our lives.
Human beings think in stories, understand the world through stories, make plans
and decisions in stories and organize their lives in stories. Although stories
drive our decisions about how and where to invest, how much to spend and save,
and help propel major economic events and policies, economists have
systematically neglected the role of narrative.
This SDG will use Nobel
Prize winning economist Robert Shiller’s new book, Narrative
Economics to
understand this concept. The book is a magisterial account
of more than a century of history of ten pairs of “perennial economic
narratives,” in which one narrative emerges, only to be replaced by its
counter-narrative, which in turn is replaced by the original narrative in a new
form, and so on.
In this SDG we will study narratives of panic
versus confidence; frugality versus conspicuous consumption; currency stories;
machines as job creators versus job killers; artificial intelligence; real
estate and stock market booms and busts; and evil business vs evil workers. Further, we will attempt to show how old
tools like focus groups and new tools like textual analysis of social media can
shed fresh new light on what is occurring in the economy, to supplement the
standard economic tool-set.
1. Preface, Chapter 1 and Appendix: What is Narrative
Economics? The Bitcoin Narratives. Applying Epidemic Models.
2. Chapter
2 and 3: An Adventure in
Consilience. Contagion, Constellations
and Confluence.
3. Chapters
4 and 5: Why do Narratives go
Viral? The Laffer Curve and the Rubik’s
Cube go Viral.
4. Chapters
6 and 7: Diverse Evidence of the
Virality of Economic Narratives. Casualty
and Constellations.
5. Chapters
8 and 9: Seven Propositions of Narrative
Economics. Recurrence and Mutation.
6. Chapters
10 and 11: Panic versus Confidence. Frugality versus Conspicuous Consumption.
7. Chapters
12 and 15: The Gold Standard versus
bimettalism. Real Estate Booms and Busts.
8. Chapters
13 and 14: Labor-Saving Machines Replace Many Jobs. Automation and Artificial Intelligence
Replace Almost All Jobs.
9. Chapters
16 and 17: Stock Market Bubbles. Boycotts, Profiteers and Evil Business
10. Chapters
18 and 19: The Wage-Price Spiral and Evil Labor Unions. Future Narratives, Future Research
Shiller, Robert J.; Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events, Princeton University Press, 2019.
Additional Reading:
What People Say About the Economy Can Set Off a
Recession
https://www.nytimes.com › 2019/09/12 › business › recession-fear-talk
How Stories Drive the Stock Market - The New York
Times
https://www.nytimes.com › 2016/01/24 › upshot ›
how-stories-drive-the-st...