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Cited by 12Monetary Policy and Economic ImpactEconomic theories and modelsEconomic Theory and Policy

Narratives about the Macroeconomy

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Andre, Peter, Haaland, Ingar, Roth, Christopher, Wiederholt, Mirko, Wohlfart, Johannes·2026·Review of Economic Studies
DOI 10.1093/restud/rdag014
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Abstract

We study narratives about the macroeconomy—the stories people tell to explain macroeconomic phenomena—in the context of a historic surge in inflation. In our empirical analysis, we field surveys with more than 10,000 U.S. households and 100 academic experts, measure economic narratives in open-ended questions, and represent them as directed acyclic graphs. Households’ narratives are strongly heterogeneous, coarser than experts’ narratives, focus more on the supply than the demand side, and often feature politically charged explanations. Moreover, narratives shape how households form inflation expectations and interpret new information, which we demonstrate in a series of experiments. Informed by these findings, our theoretical analysis incorporates narratives into an otherwise conventional New Keynesian model and demonstrates their importance for aggregate outcomes through their effect on agents’ expectations.

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Crossref · 10.1093/restud/rdag014

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Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • The taxonomy of mechanisms maps onto the use classification in the main text, with explanation, feedback, and brainstorming as channels where AI works with the student and shortcutting and offloading as channels where AI works for the student.

    “The taxonomy also maps onto the use classification in the main text.”

    From Experimental Evidence on the Learning Impact of Generative AI (2026) · cites this paper as Andre et al. (2026)

  • 27 percent of net-negative narratives name at least one promoting channel.

    “20 percent of net-positive narratives name at least one harming channel, and 27 percent of net-negative narratives name at least one promoting channel.”

    From Experimental Evidence on the Learning Impact of Generative AI (2026) · cites this paper as Andre et al. (2026)

  • Andre et al. (2026) document the same gender difference in narratives about inflation.

    “the same gender difference Andre et al. (2026) document in narratives about inflation.”

    From Experimental Evidence on the Learning Impact of Generative AI (2026) · cites this paper as Andre et al. (2026)

  • Inter-rater agreement between the two LLM coders matches that of trained human coders in Andre et al. (2026) for mechanisms, promoting/harming channels, and signed links.

    “Agreement matches that of the trained human coders in Andre et al. (2026): 0.88 for the individual mechanisms (0.88 in their data), 0.97 and 0.97 for the coarser grouping into any promoting and any harming channel (0.94 and 0.93), and 0.73 for the signed links (0.77)”

    From Experimental Evidence on the Learning Impact of Generative AI (2026) · cites this paper as Andre et al. (2026)

  • 20 percent of net-positive narratives name at least one harming channel.

    “20 percent of net-positive narratives name at least one harming channel, and 27 percent of net-negative narratives name at least one promoting channel.”

    From Experimental Evidence on the Learning Impact of Generative AI (2026) · cites this paper as Andre et al. (2026)

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Authors
Andre, P., Haaland, I., Roth, C., Wiederholt, M., & Wohlfart, J.
Affiliations
  • Goethe University Frankfurt (DE)
  • Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NO)
  • University of Cologne (DE)
  • Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (DE)
Corresponding author
Andre, Peter
ORCID
Venue
Review of Economic Studies
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Published
2026-02-18
ISSN
  • 0034-6527 (ISSN-L)
  • 1467-937X
DOI
10.1093/restud/rdag014
OpenAlex
W7130387645
Cited by
12
References
0
Citations by year
2026: 11 · 2025: 1
FWCI
136.35
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
The Review of Economic Studies (publishedVersion, cc-by)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › General Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Monetary Policy and Economic Impact
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Economic theories and models
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › General Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economic Theory and Policy
Keywords
economic narratives, inflation expectations, household expectations, directed acyclic graphs, New Keynesian model, information updating, inflation surge

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