Narrative Economics and Neuroeconomics

This article is a reworked lecture I have given at theFinancialUniversityunder the Government of theRussian FederationinMoscow. This lecture has considered the epidemiology of narratives relevant to economic fluctuations (outcomes), allowing them to “go viral” and spread far away, even worldwide, and thereby influencing economic outcomes. However, I had to accommodate my talk to the Russian audience adding some illustrative examples for better understanding. My basic goal in this paper is to describe what we know about narratives and the penchant of the human mind to be engaged by them, to consider reasons to expect that narratives might well be thought of as important, largely exogenous shocks to the aggregate economy. Thus, the main focus was on narratives going viral, affecting the economy in an age of neuroimaging, big data. This is because the human brain has always been highly tuned towards narratives, whether factual or not, to justify ongoing actions — even in such basic actions as spending and investing. Though these narratives are deeply human phenomena that are difficult to study in a scientific manner, quantitative analysis may help us gain a better understanding of these epidemics in the future. Many examples are seen as revealing the importance of the linkage of human brains and now computers through narratives associated with popular models of the economy and offering new research opportunities for both economics and neuroscience.