The behavioral-economics-revolution narrative was manufactured by journalists and political appointees

Evidence

So wherever did the vast bulk of lay commentators derive the unfounded impression that behavioral economics was poised to deliver us from the previous errors of orthodoxy when it came to the economic crisis? Partly, it was the fault of a few high-profile economists such as Shiller, Akerlof, Krugman, and Lo, whose “behavioral” credentials within the community were, shall we say, less than robust. Partly it was due to some political appointees in the Obama administration such as Cass Sunstein who claimed (falsely, as it turned out) that behavioral economics could be used to “nudge” people into behaving more like neoclassical agents. Partly, it was the fault of a few bona fide behavioral finance economists (like Andrei Shleifer), who quickly whipped up a couple of toy models after the crisis, purportedly demonstrating that all agents are beset with a peculiar character flaw that causes them to ignore unlikely disastrous events, causing them to whipsaw around the true fundamental determinants of asset prices as defined by the orthodox rational-expectations model, in the face of securitization and tranching. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 744

Categorization

• XREF: Directly traces the thought-collective mechanisms this reader is tracking — how a false narrative about economic reform got constructed across economists, appointees, and journalists. — connects to: Economists manufacture simplified crisis narratives blaming government to preserve public trust — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 841; Journalists’ pro-market shift was read as gradual corruption, not intellectual conviction — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 155
• SEED: Could anchor an article on how ‘the revolution that never was’ narratives get manufactured in expert communities.

Broader Connections

• Economists manufacture simplified crisis narratives blaming government to preserve public trust #complicates (0.72) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 841