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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Narrative Economics by Yale University

4.8
stars
585 ratings

About the Course

Dear Potential Learner, Please take some time to read through this note before deciding to enroll. This course, Narrative Economics, is relatively short and proposes a simple concept: we need to incorporate the contagion of narratives into our economic theory. You can think of narratives as stories that shape public beliefs, which in turn influence our decision making. Understanding how people arrived at certain decisions in the past can aid our understanding of the economy today and improve our forecasts of the future. Popular thinking heavily influences our answers to questions such as how much to invest, how much to spend or save, whether to go to college or take a certain job, and many more. Narrative economics is the study of the viral spread of popular narratives that affect economic behavior. I believe incorporating these ideas into our research must be done both to improve our ability to anticipate and prepare for economic events and help us structure economic institutions and policy. Until we better incorporate it into our methods of analysis and forecasting, we remain blind to a very real, very palpable, very important mechanism for economic change. Even in the dawning age of the Internet and artificial intelligence, so long as people remain ultimately in control, human narratives will matter. Maybe they will especially matter as the new technology exploits human weaknesses and creates new venues for narrative contagion. If we do not understand the epidemics of popular narratives, we cannot fully understand changes in the economy and in economic behavior. The course is broken into 4 modules: Part I introduces basic concepts and demonstrates how popular stories change over time to affect economic outcomes, including recessions, depressions and inequality as well as effective inspiration and growth.. These stories can be observed from diverse sources such as politics, the media, or even popular songs. Part II seeks to answer why some stories go viral, while others are quickly forgotten, by defining our narrative theory more firmly. This module enumerates and explores a list of seven propositions to help discipline any analysis of economic narratives. Part III examines nine perennial narratives that have proved their ability to influence important economic decisions. They include narratives regarding artificial intelligence, stock market bubbles, and job insecurity. Part IV looks to the future and highlights the opportunities for consilience in Narrative Economics. We share some thoughts about where narratives are taking us at this point in history and what kind of future research could improve our understanding of them. This course offers only the beginnings of a new idea and a few suggestions for how it could be used by economists and financial professionals. The tone is not prescriptive or authoritative, as perhaps my Coursera course, Financial Markets, is in places. It represents the beginning of the journey (epidemic). This course is my way of floating the “germ” of this idea out into the broader community of not only professionals but of anyone who is interested in discovering how and why things become “important” to us as a society. I hope some of you will become infected by this idea, mutate it, spread it, and advance it. The beginning of the journey is the easy part. The challenge will come in taking these concepts to the next level. We have the tools to incorporate narratives into our research and the moral obligation to act; only the work remains. - Robert J. Shiller...

Top reviews

AV

Jun 6, 2023

A very insightful and approachable course about the effects of human biases over the economic landscape and how social trends tend to leave a permanent mark on history and exact sciences like finance.

LA

Mar 10, 2024

I really enjoyed this course, it opened my eyes so much and I might keep going even though I only took this course out of fun, I was very interested in this topic. lucky me it Was interesting! Thanks

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151 - 171 of 171 Reviews for Narrative Economics

By Russell H

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Apr 1, 2023

Interesting perspectives on an under-appreciated driver of economic and social direction, in society at large and personally. Also argues for the importance of multidisciplinary study vs. narrowly-focused specialization.

By Rebecca H

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Jun 28, 2023

This short course is not as useful as Prof. other class Financial Markets but thank you for introducing the new concept for narrative economics to me

By fozan t

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May 12, 2023

A great introduction to the new field of Narrative Economics, A must course to understand how Narratives influence our everyday life and Economics.

By Antoine F

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Mar 12, 2024

Good introduction to the concept of narrative (economics focused but with many other examples too including politics...)

By Henry, W Y W

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Aug 24, 2023

The course is quite inspiring and was an eye-opening journey into the narratives and their impact on economic behavior. 

By Philip H

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Apr 11, 2023

Very relevant during the reemergence of the AI narrative and concerns about the impact of the technology to employment.

By Jill M

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May 3, 2023

Enjoyed learning about this subject as I had no prior knowledge in this area. Was able to learn something new.

By Robert O

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Apr 3, 2023

Very broad look into narrative economics, would suggest you do this cert if you are doing an economics degree

By Kaibalya B B

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Sep 18, 2024

Sometimes the videos were a bit monotonous but overall a course to learn narrative economics

By simon p

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Feb 13, 2024

well spoken and interesting lectures. However, I would have loved assignments of some kind.

By OMAR D H P

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Sep 20, 2023

interestgn course, some videos were blurry, some questions odd and very hard to follow

By Scott S

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May 31, 2023

Somewhat redundant with the narrative material.

By Bruce H

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Jul 10, 2023

A bit rambling but interesting nonetheless.

By Ruth S

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Sep 5, 2023

Gained a lot of insights from this course.

By Phil R

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Mar 27, 2023

Interesting course, thank you!

By Harvey C

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Dec 28, 2023

I liked the tests, between each chapters. However, I feel like a lot of the topics weren't spoken in much detail

By Henok T

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May 27, 2023

be good if u included more technical workings

By AYUSH S

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Jun 17, 2024

good course, but not very important

By Jeff L

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Jan 17, 2024

Shiller is a terrific thinker and a really good teacher. Here, he is just beginning to explore a new idea. His thinking is a bit scattered, and his scholarship is weak. Not his best work!

By Craig C

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May 5, 2024

It starts off with an unrealistic model of a virus spread among a population by assuming that every contact results in infection. It then proceeds with irrelevant waffle and quote mining along with one or two book promotions. I'm guessing his Google search of this "subject" is a shameless way to bump up his book in Google searches ? Although that's speculation on my part. But it's a lot of words for little to no useful information

By Kavya A

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Jun 18, 2024

horrible