“Is the Market Actually Efficient? No, It Is Only a Very Powerful Narrative” — Christoph Gisiger interviews Robert Shiller

Christoph Gisiger interviews Robert Shiller about his new book, Narrative Economics. Robert Shiller also provides some general financial advice based on CAPE.

Interestingly, Robert Shiller is one of the chief influencers of the economic and financial narratives of both the day and the times, and his influence spills over into the social and political narratives, too. One of the powerful influencers of those narratives is the Nobel Prize, which Riksbank undoubtedly knew when they established the "Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel."

The commonly held view is that there is an objective reality in which we all live and that it is knowable by all. This is the commonsense view or naïve view in epistemology. It doesn't hold up on reflection which has been known for millennia and alternatives debated. 

Basically, humans see through the lens of their "hardware" and "software," the hardware being the common natural characteristic that human's share and the software being the lens that human acquire through social conditioning, which is also influenced by personal disposition. 

Far from seeing reality more of less "as it is," humans use language to construct worldviews that they identify with reality. Humans share worldviews to some extent based on social exposure and interaction, but even here the various worldviews differ based on each persons uniqueness as an individual.

Narratives a "teaching stories" are prehistorical. Humans have always shaped their "reality." Science is an attempt to minimize the subjective and isolate the objective. But many people give science much more credit in this regard than is due, since humans have to operate through the distorted lens of human perception and cognition, and the influence of affect. Philosophers explored this since the begining of reflection on experience and behavior and only recently has this also been investigated "scientifically," in psychology and cognitive science.

Presently, narrative control is big business. Think, for example, public relations, and marketing & advertising, not to mention political strategy, propaganda and the like. Many, many people are employed in this conscious and intentional endeavor not only to shape the narrative but to dominate it.

ProMarket — The blog of the Stigler Center at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business
“Is the Market Actually Efficient? No, It Is Only a Very Powerful Narrative”
Christoph Gisiger interviews Robert Shiller