Folk-economic beliefs as “evidential fiction”: Putting the economic public discourse back on track

Folk-economic beliefs may be regarded as “evidential fictions” that exploit the natural tendency of human cognition to organize itself in narrative form. Narrative counter-arguments are likely more effective than logical debunking. The challenge is to convey sound economic reasoning in narratively conspicuous forms – an opportunity for economics to rethink its role and agency in public discourse, in the spirit of its old classics.

Acerbi A., Sacco P.L. (2018), Folk-economic beliefs as “evidential fiction”: Putting the economic public discourse back on track (Commentary on Boyer & Petersen), Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 41, e159