Economic policy narratives: a taxonomy and application

Timothy Besley, Adam Brzezinski and Jake Fazzio

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: This article discusses how economic policy narratives can be framed as part of the study of policy formation based on insights from an emerging literature. We offer a taxonomy that distinguishes between causal and moral policy narratives. We analyse how the political success of policy narratives depends on alignment with the interests of voters and is influenced by motivated reasoning. We then show how large language models can be used to study policy narratives through an application to narratives on the size of government voiced in the UK House of Commons over 1950–2023.

Keywords: narratives; motivated reasoning; size of government (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J01 J1 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 17 pages
Date: 2026-02-02
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Published in LSE Public Policy Review, 2, February, 2026, 4(1). ISSN: 2633-4046

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:137241

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