initial coin offerings (ICOs), 76
initial public offerings (IPOs), flipping of, 224
interest rates: central bank changes of, xvi; expectations of future rates, 55–56; of limited value in understanding economic events, 74–75; no proven record of forecasting of, 55; wage-price spiral narrative and, 260
international economic narratives, 110
International Monetary Fund, xiv
International Social Survey Program, 282
Internet: changes in contagion caused by, 273, 297; cooperation using new technology and, 7; fear of automation at beginning of, 205; home price narrative and, 218; narrative of computer power launched by, 206; phrase “going viral” in relation to, x; SIRS model for memes on, 297–98; views or likes on, x. See also dot-com boom; search engines; social media
Internet trolls, 67
interviews as research tools, 281–82
inventions, obvious but not adopted, 38–39
investment: fear-related brain circuitry and, 57–58; Keynes on decisions involved in, xvi, 63–64; labor-saving machinery narrative and, 209; profitable for some during World War I, 94. See also stock market
investment managers, stories told by, 15
irrational exuberance: exogenous effect on economy, 76; Greenspan on 1996 stock market and, 227
Irrational Exuberance (Shiller), 29
Isaacson, Walter, 208
IS-LM model, 24–26, 27f
Jackendoff, Ray, 35
James, William, 121
Japan: “lost decades” of 1990s and beyond, 95, 150
Jenkins, Gwilym, 295
Jevons, William Stanley, 73–74
jigsaw puzzle craze, 148–49
Jobs, Steve, 208–9
Johnson, Lyndon, 50, 202
Johnson, Mark, 17
Jones, John P., 165
Jung, Carl, 15
Kahneman, Daniel, 66
Kasparov, Garry, 36
Katona, George, 66, 119
Katz, Elihu, 297
kayfabe, 84
keep-up-with-the-Joneses narrative, 136
Kempton, Murray, 230–31
Kendall, David G., 296
Kendall, Patricia L., 281
Kennedy, John F., 236, 307n13
Kennedy, Joseph, 236–37
Kennedy, Robert F., 260
Kermack-McKendrick SIR model, 289–93, 291f; chaotic solutions of, 299–300; information cascades and, 300; investment decisions and, 299; still workable for idea epidemics, 298; variations on, 293–98. See also compartmental models of epidemics
Keynes, John Maynard: animal spirits and, 138; “beauty contest” metaphor of, 63–64; business confidence and, xvi; consequences of Versailles treaty and, xvii–xviii, 26; current consumption and current income according to, 307n3; gold standard narrative and, 172, 173; IS-LM model and, 25–26; on stimulus leading to economic boom, 27–28
Kim, Dasol, 67
King, Coretta Scott, 153
King, Martin Luther, Jr., 153–54
Kingsley, Grace, 142
Kiplinger, Willard Monroe, 130, 132
Klages, Mary, 16
Klein, Melanie, 15
Koopmans, Tjalling, xv
Kranton, Rachel, xxi
Kristol, Irving, xvi–xvii
Krock, Arthur, 90–91
Kulik, James, 307n13
Kydland, Finn E., 24
labor-saving machinery narrative, 174–76, 175f; counternarrative to, 178; depression of 1873–79 and, 174, 176–78; depression of 1893–97 and, 174, 179–81; early history of, 174–76; economic decisions affected by, 209; economic effects of narrative itself, 211; fear during Great Depression and, 109; increasingly vivid before 1930, 182–86; office workplace and, 186; opportunity during dot-com boom and, 109; robots and, 181–82; underconsumption or overproduction theory and, 187–89, 191–92; unemployment and, xiv, 9, 130, 177–81, 187–88, 191–92. See also technological unemployment narrative
labor unions: associated by public with organized crime, 260; automation and, 200, 202; boycotts used by, 241; trends in public support for, 258–59, 266, 320n2; wage cuts in depression of 1920–21 and, 249, 251; wage-price spiral and, 258–60, 261, 263, 264
Lacoste, Jean René, 62, 63
Laffer, Art, 42, 44–45
Laffer curve narrative, xviii, 24, 42–47, 48, 51, 52; exogenous effect on economy, 76; impact on output and prices, 48; in supply-side economics constellation, 47–48; two epidemics in appearance of, 42, 43f
laissez-faire narrative, in second half of twentieth century, 50
Lakoff, George, 17
land: federal regulation of interstate sales of, 317n15; home prices and, 215, 216; narrative about its scarcity and value, 212; not depreciating like the home, 215; as percentage of home’s value, 214, 317n5; sold as investment in undeveloped property, 220–21
land bubbles, 213
land speculation, 213; Florida boom of 1920s, 214, 215, 220–21; marketing of undeveloped land before Great Depression and, 220
Lang, Fritz, 203
Lange, Dorothea, 131
Laughlin, J. Laurence, 312n10
The Law of Success in 16 Lessons (Hill), 121–22
Lazarsfeld, Paul F., 297
leading indicators: in economic forecasting, 125, 309n10; epidemic models instead of search for, 295; narratives causing changes in, 276; underlying human behavior and, xv
learning, narrative-centered, 77–78
Le Bon, Gustave, 59, 119
leveraged buyouts, 47
Levi Strauss Company, 148
libertarianism, and hacker ethic, 7
Liebhold, Peter, 44
Lincoln, Abraham, 101
Lindgren, Astrid, 49
Linglong’s Dingdong, 207
linguistics and narrative, 16–17, 94–95
Linux operating system, 7
listening as a research method, 281
literary studies and narrative, 15–16, 286
Livermore, Shaw, ix
Loftus, Elizabeth F., 78
logos on clothing and shoes, 62–63; on blue jeans, 148
Long, Elisa F., 295
Lopokova, Lydia, 26
Lorayne, Harry, 46–47
“lost decade” story, 95, 150
Love Is a Story (Sternberg), 79–80
Lovejoy, E. P., 14
Lubell, Samuel, 200
Lucas, George, 203
Luddite event in 1811, 174, 176
Luddite narrative, 9, 185; in 1930s, 186–87
Lujan, Sterlin, 6
Machill, Marcel, 77
machine learning, 207–8, 211
machines replacing jobs. See labor-saving machinery narrative
“The Machine Stops” (Forster), 181
Mackay, Charles, 59, 119
MacMullen, Ramsay, 14
Malabre, Alfred L., Jr., 202
Mallon, Mary, 20
Mann, Dorothea Lawrence, 60
Marden, Orison Swett, 122
marketers: contagion rate engineered by, 60; lowering the forgetting rate, 62; profiting from narratives, xiii, 62; recurrence of narratives due to, 109–10
marketing: with accelerated analytics, 20; appeals to patriotism in, 155; background music and, 67; bizarre mental images in, 46; book jackets and, 60–61; contagion of economic narratives and, 60–63, 297; detested by many consumers, 62; focus group methods developed for, 283; logos and, 62–63, 148; self-referencing in, 77; social media used for, 274–75; of “the news,” 61–62
Marx, Groucho, 133
Marx, Karl, 102
master narrative, 92
master plots in fiction, 16
maximize shareholder value, 47–48
May, John Allan, 38
McCall, Samuel W., 168
McCormick, Anne O’Hare, 140, 143
McGinn, Daniel, 217–18
McKinley, William, 163, 164, 171, 313n29
McQuiggan, Scott W., 77–78
Meany, George, 202
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��Measurement without Theory” (Koopmans), xv
Meeker, Royal, 245
Mellon, Andrew, 44
Meloney, Marie, 220
memes, 60, 88
Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions (Mackay), 59, 119
memory: aided by rituals and symbols, 62; aided by visual stimuli, 45, 46–47; collective, 60; contagion of narratives and, 252; fear-related brain circuitry and, 57–58; flashbulb memory, 80–83, 233, 307n13; source monitoring in, 84, 307n21. See also forgetting, in epidemic model
Men and Machines (Chase), 185
mentors for young people, 274
Merrill, Charles, 167
Merton, Robert K., 73, 198, 281
metanarrative, 92
metaphors, 16, 17; of economy as sick or healthy, 79
meteorology narratives, 123
Metropolis (film), 203
Mexican Americans, deported during Great Depression, 190
Michel, Jean-Baptiste, 24
Milosz, Czeslaw, 57
Mitchell, Wesley C., 125, 309n10
Mitterrand, François, 42
“modern monetary theory,” 42
Modern Times (film), 195
modesty narrative: absent from George and Veblen works, 310n1; in Japanese “lost decades,” 150; present decline in, 272
modesty narrative of Great Depression: bicycle craze and, 143; blue jeans and, 147–48; conspicuous consumption and, 135, 136–37, 139, 142–45; decline in, 150
Modigliani, Franco, 301n13
Mokyr, Joel, 71
Moley, Raymond, 114
Monetary History of the United States (Friedman and Schwartz), 73, 132–33
monetary policy: causal impact on aggregate economy, 73; studies of narratives to infer motivations of, 281; wage-price spiral narrative and, 261
monetary system: inflation and, 262; typical American’s confusion about, 170
monetary theory: invoked by bimetallism and Bitcoin, 22; “modern monetary theory” narrative, 42
money narratives, 173. See also Bitcoin narrative; gold standard narrative
money supply: gold discoveries of 1897 to 1914, 73; Great Depression and, 132–33
moral dimensions of economic narratives, 80; abstract economic forces and, xvii; American Dream narrative and, 155; anger at business and, 239; annoyance with boycotts and, 241; concerns about labor unions and, 258; databases of sermons relevant to, 284–85; frugality during Great Depression and, 143; opposing pairs of narrative constellations and, 113; Roosevelt’s Depression fireside chat and, 129, 278; about stock market crash of 1929, 235–36; wage-price spiral narrative and, 261–62, 266
morality in historical narrative, 37
Morgan, J. P., 111, 115, 117–18
Morson, Gary Saul, 16
Mullen, Thomas, 128
Muller, Jerry Z., 75, 306n5
multiplier-accelerator model, 24–25, 27–28, 27f, 303n7
music: brain structure and, 53, 54; narrative and, 35; songs that are one-hit wonders, 41–42
Music, Language and the Brain (Patel), 35
music market of sociology experiment, 39–40
mutation in evolutionary theory, 64
mutation of diseases, 108
mutation of economic narratives, 108–9; by attaching new celebrity, 102, 108–9; on cryptocurrencies, 76; to more contagious forms, 31, 40; within narrative constellations, 86, 107; randomness in, 31, 40; of recurrent narratives, 107, 109–10, 238; self-fulfilling prophecies derived from, 74; of technological unemployment narrative, 196, 199
mutation of narratives: “Happy Birthday to You” and, 98–99; from hypnosis to autosuggestion, 122
Nakamoto, Satoshi, 4, 7–8, 108–9, 162, 193, 302n3, 302n8
names attached to narratives, 94–95
narrative economics: concept of, xi, 3; consilience and, 12; earlier use of the phrase, xi. See also economic narratives
narrative economics research: artificial intelligence in, 276; databases to be used in, 279, 281–82, 284–85; data collection in, 276, 279–86; economic theory and, 277–79; exact methods with humanistic approach in, 271–72; future of, 275–77; quantitative methods in, 279; remaining nonpartisan in, 278–79; textual analysis in, 279, 287; tracking and quantifying narratives in, 286–87
narrative psychology, 15, 65–67, 78, 287
narratives: academic disciplines attending to, 12, 13f; becoming economic narratives, 74; central to thinking and motivation, 31–32; conspiracy theories in, 35–36; defined, xi; disrupted by brain injury, 65–66; distinguishing humans from animals, 34–35; effective wording and delivery of, 271; historical, 37; hormones of listener and, 54–55; as human constructs, 65; names attached to, 94–95; norms of politeness in transmission of, 35; originating with one or a few people, 71–72; as particular form of story, 36; as scripts or social norms, 37–38, 74, 77; social change and, 32–33; universality of, 33–35. See also constellations of narratives; contagion of narratives; economic narratives; mutation of narratives; stories; viral narratives
National Association of Realtors, 216, 219, 220
National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER): biggest economic events in US since 1854 defined by, 111–12; chronicle of business cycles, 110; working paper database, 279
National Industrial Recovery Act, 132, 189, 252
“near-rational,” 300
network models, 296
neurolinguistics and narrative, 16–17; synonyms and, 94–95
neuroscience and narrative: hormones involved in, 54–55; research methods and, 287. See also brain
Newcomb, Anthony, 35
“New Deal,” coined by Stuart Chase, 185
The New Financial Order (Shiller), 38
news media: creative during major stock market corrections, 75; economic narratives spread through, 3, 21; improving retention with narrative presentation, 77; international economic narratives and, 110; marketing-driven, 61–62; in modified SIR model, 297; reminding public on anniversaries of events, 76; searching for words and phrases in, x
Nixon, Richard, 173
normalcy, 244, 252
North, Douglass, 14
Northern Rock bank run in 2007, 119, 135
novels: classical symphony as, 35; understanding human experience and, 16. See also fiction
Noyes, Alexander Dana, 127, 164, 231
Nudge (Thaler and Sunstein), 278
nudge units, 277–78
NVIDIA Corporation, 20
O’Barr, William M., 15
Occupy Wall Street protest, 8, 225
office workplace: automation of, 204; labor-saving machinery narrative and, 186
Ohanian, Lee E., 132
oil embargo of 1973, 256
one-hit wonders, 41–42
Only Yesterday (Allen), ix–xi, 139
organ donation, narrative presentation of, 78
overlapping generations model, 24–25, 27f, 303n8
overproduction or underconsumption theory, 187–92
“Ownership Society” (Bush reelection slogan), 155
oxytocin, 54
Oz: The Great and Powerful (film), 172
Palme, Olof, 48–49
panic: at beginning of World War I, 93–94; creation of Federal Reserve and, 117; in financial crisis, 55–56, 86; following complacency, 55–56; Great Depression seen as, 128; inflation in 1970s and, 262; stock prices and, 228. See also bank runs; fear; financial panic narrative
Panic of 1907, 94, 111, 115, 117, 118f
Part of Our Time (Kempton), 230–31
Patel, Aniruddh, 35
Pathways Back to Prosperity (Baker), 210
patriotic appeal of a narrative, 101, 102–3
Paul, Ron, 156
Pavlov, Ivan P., 56
Pearl Harbor attack, memories of hearing about, 81–82
Penfield, Wilder, 53–54
perennial narratives, 107–8; nine major examples of, 113, 266–67 (see also specific examples); as works in progress, 276
permanent-income
hypothesis, 307n3
“permanently high plateau,” 75–76
phantasies of Melanie Klein, 15
The Philosophy of Honest Poverty, 150
phishing equilibrium, 61
phools, 61, 62
Piketty, Thomas, 150, 210–11
Piore, Michael, 281
Plath, Robert, 38, 39
Plato, 34
policy: formulating with knowledge of narratives, 3, 287. See also monetary policy
policymakers: creating and disseminating counternarratives, 278; narrative studies to infer motivations of, 281, 321n14
poliomyelitis enterovirus epidemic, 295–96
Pollack, Andrew, 204
Polletta, Francesca, 32
Pomperipossa in the World of Money (Lindgren), 49
Ponzi, Charles, 220–21
Ponzi scheme, 220
populism: inflation after World War I and, 245; opposition to gold standard and, 166
portfolio insurance, 93
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), 57
“postwar,” 242–43
Pound, John, 298
poverty: decreasing basic-needs charity in today’s US, 272; Depression-era attitudes toward, 143; Dust Bowl and, 131; nineteenth-century moral views of, 117; technological advances creating, 178
poverty-chic culture, 143, 148, 149
power age, 183
predicting economic events. See economic forecasting
Prescott, Edward C., 24
price controls, in US after World War II, 255
price per acre, references to, 214
price setting: interviews of executives about, 281. See also wage-price spiral narrative
prison inmates, telling stories, 15
professional narratives, xiii
profiteer narrative, 241–43, 243f, 246–49; abrupt end of 1920–21 depression and, 250–51; falling consumer prices and, 243–44; inflation after World War I and, 245, 265. See also excess profits
profits, corporate: taxes on, 45, 48; viral narratives associated with, 47–48
Progress and Poverty (George), 111, 178–79, 188, 209, 310n1
property taxes, taxpayer revolt focused on, 50
Proposition 13, 50
Propp, Vladimir, 16
ProQuest News & Newspapers, x
Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph, 6
prudent person rule, 37
Prum, Richard O., 65
psychoanalysis and narrative, 15, 16, 280
Psychological Economics (Katona), 66
psychological impact of opinion leaders, 127
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