IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/halshs-03345752.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Becoming paradigmatic: the strategic uses of narratives in behavioral economics

Author

Listed:
  • Alexandre Truc

    (GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion - UNS - Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (1965 - 2019) - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UniCA - Université Côte d'Azur)

Abstract

In the 1980s, Richard Thaler used Thomas Kuhn's framework as a narrative tool to present behavioural economics (BE) as an alternative paradigm. Despite resistance from other economists to this narrative, Thaler persisted with this revolutionary style up to the 2010s and promoted an "us versus them" identity for BE. In the present article, we investigate the role of Thaler's narrative and show that it has played an important part in BE's successes and identity. Thaler's narrative has stimulated imitation by creating a story out of scattered anomalies and laying out a simple scientific model to follow. The narrative has fostered a revolutionary identity for BE, promoted the more innovative aspects of BE and encouraged some behavioural economists to adopt a more confrontational approach. Although Thaler's narrative lacked resolution – Thaler himself acknowledged the uncertainties related to BE's revolutionary characteristics – it has shaped the history of behavioural economics.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexandre Truc, 2021. "Becoming paradigmatic: the strategic uses of narratives in behavioral economics," Post-Print halshs-03345752, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-03345752
    DOI: 10.1080/09672567.2021.1936107
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-03345752v1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-03345752v1/document
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/09672567.2021.1936107?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Guilhem Lecouteux, 2023. "The Homer economicus narrative: from cognitive psychology to individual public policies," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(2), pages 176-187, April.
    2. Guilhem Lecouteux, 2022. "The Homer economicus narrative: from cognitive psychology to individual public policies," Working Papers hal-03791951, HAL.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-03345752. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.