 ‘Let me tell you a story’: the politics of macroeconomic modelsMatthew Watson New Political Economy, 2024, vol. 29, issue 6, 844-856 Abstract: Various social science literatures suggest that the general character of macroeconomic models reflects their assumptive base. A more specialist literature in the Weintraub-Boumans-Morgan tradition shows how the mathematics of those models moulds together logical implications of particular starting assumptions, insights from generally accepted theoretical propositions, and professionalised common-sense about how the world works. I go one step further in arguing that a process of narrative moulding operates in tandem with this mathematical moulding. A naming strategy provides the mathematical properties of macroeconomic models with economic labels to create the feeling that they are something more than a merely mathematical structure. A storytelling strategy then informs policy-makers of where the solution to the system of equations positions the outer limits of both political desirability and political possibility. Future dedicated research programmes into the narrative dimensions of macroeconomic models can be expected to shed further light on how theory models can masquerade as policy models and substitute models as surrogate models. Date: 2024 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:cnpexx:v:29:y:2024:i:6:p:844-856 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/13563467.2024.2359964 Access Statistics for this article New Political Economy is currently edited by Professor Colin Hay More articles in New Political Economy from Taylor & Francis Journals |
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