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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2018

Alberto Acerbi  and
Pier Luigi Sacco
Alberto Acerbi
Affiliation:
Department of Industrial Engineering and Innovation Sciences, Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands. [email protected]://acerbialberto.com
Pier Luigi Sacco
Affiliation:
Department of Humanities, IULM University of Milan, 20143 Milan, Italy. [email protected] Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, Harvard University, Cambridge MA 02138. [email protected] FBK-IRVAPP [Fondazione Bruno Kessler – Research Institute for the Evaluation of Public Policy], 38122 Trento, Italy. [email protected]
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Abstract

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.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 41 , 2018 , e159
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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