How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events
When you watch an economist on TV, you’ll notice that they’ll nearly always speak in figures. You’ll hear them use terms like “GDP” or “inflation” describing a past stock-market crash or an impending recession.
In an economist’s world, it can often seem as if the economy lives independently from the rest of the world, on a purely numerical plane. Economists rarely, if ever, try to explain the economy by referring to people’s fears, hopes, or prejudices. And they’ll often leave out our messy human stories, which are just as crucial to understanding big economic events. That’s where narrative economics come in.
The key message here is: Narrative economics considers the collective stories that change economic behavior.
First, to understand the phrase “narrative economics,” we need to consider the modern use of the word narrative.
Rather than simply referring to something with a beginning, middle, and end, a narrative can describe a collective story or belief shared by a group of people. Take the “shrewd businessman,” a popular narrative in the United States. In fact, Donald Trump capitalized on it to appeal to voters. Whether or not Trump is a shrewd businessman doesn’t matter – he successfully hitched himself to this narrative and played up his credentials as a tough, wily operator who’d get the best deal for the country.
And, of course, that particular narrative had a real effect. It helped Donald Trump get elected president.
Now, take the stock-market crash of 1929. In the years before the crash, there were lots of popular narratives flying around. There were stories of ordinary people gambling all of their savings on a particular stock and becoming enviably rich. Of course, this led more and more people to make bad investments, culminating in the big crash on October 24, 1929.
Narratives should form part of our understanding of any big economic event, but often, they don’t. While economists have rarely focused on stories, there has been one notable exception – Cambridge economist John Maynard Keynes. Rather than simply refer to figures, Keynes made a note of public feelings at play. In his book Economic Consequences of the Peace, he predicted that Germany would become deeply embittered by the heavy reparations they were required to pay after World War One. No purely quantitative analysis could’ve told us that.
Narrative Economics (2019) describes how popular narratives influence the way economies behave. From Bitcoin’s sudden rise to stock-market crashes, Narrative Economics looks beyond the statistics to the collective human stories that drive these events.
The concept sounds like something that most people would find dull and boring. But, somehow, the Laffer curve went viral.
Ich bin begeistert. Ich liebe Bücher aber durch zwei kleine Kinder komme ich einfach nicht zum Lesen. Und ja, viele Bücher haben viel bla bla und die Quintessenz ist eigentlich ein Bruchteil.
Genau dafür ist Blinkist total genial! Es wird auf das Wesentliche reduziert, die Blinks sind gut verständlich, gut zusammengefasst und auch hörbar! Das ist super. 80 Euro für ein ganzes Jahr klingt viel, aber dafür unbegrenzt Zugriff auf 3000 Bücher. Und dieses Wissen und die Zeitersparnis ist unbezahlbar.
Extrem empfehlenswert. Statt sinnlos im Facebook zu scrollen höre ich jetzt täglich zwischen 3-4 "Bücher". Bei manchen wird schnelle klar, dass der Kauf unnötig ist, da schon das wichtigste zusammen gefasst wurde..bei anderen macht es Lust doch das Buch selbständig zu lesen. Wirklich toll
Einer der besten, bequemsten und sinnvollsten Apps die auf ein Handy gehören. Jeden morgen 15-20 Minuten für die eigene Weiterbildung/Entwicklung oder Wissen.
Viele tolle Bücher, auf deren Kernaussagen reduziert- präzise und ansprechend zusammengefasst. Endlich habe ich das Gefühl, Zeit für Bücher zu finden, für die ich sonst keine Zeit habe.
Hol dir mit Blinkist die besten Erkenntnisse aus mehr als 7.000 Sachbüchern und Podcasts. In 15 Minuten lesen oder anhören!
Jetzt kostenlos testen
Blink 3 von 12 - Eine kurze Geschichte der Menschheit
von Yuval Noah Harari
