Irrational Exuberance (Shiller), 29
Isaacson, Walter, 208
IS-LM model, 24–26, 27f
Jackendoff, Ray, 35
James, William, 121
Japan: “lost decades” of 1990s and beyond, 95, 150
Jenkins, Gwilym, 295
Jevons, William Stanley, 73–74
jigsaw puzzle craze, 148–49
Jobs, Steve, 208–9
Johnson, Lyndon, 50, 202
Johnson, Mark, 17
Jones, John P., 165
Jung, Carl, 15
Kahneman, Daniel, 66
Kasparov, Garry, 36
Katona, George, 66, 119
Katz, Elihu, 297
kayfabe, 84
keep-up-with-the-Joneses narrative, 136
Kempton, Murray, 230–31
Kendall, David G., 296
Kendall, Patricia L., 281
Kennedy, John F., 236, 307n13
Kennedy, Joseph, 236–37
Kennedy, Robert F., 260
Kermack-McKendrick SIR model, 289–93, 291f; chaotic solutions of, 299–300; information
cascades and, 300; investment decisions and, 299; still workable for idea epidemics, 298;
variations on, 293–98. See also compartmental models of epidemics
Keynes, John Maynard: animal spirits and, 138; “beauty contest” metaphor of, 63–64; business
confidence and, xvi; consequences of Versailles treaty and, xvii–xviii, 26; current consumption and
current income according to, 307n3; gold standard narrative and, 172, 173; IS-LM model and, 25–
26; on stimulus leading to economic boom, 27–28
Kim, Dasol, 67
King, Coretta Scott, 153
King, Martin Luther, Jr., 153–54
Kingsley, Grace, 142
Kiplinger, Willard Monroe, 130, 132
Klages, Mary, 16
Klein, Melanie, 15
Koopmans, Tjalling, xv
Kranton, Rachel, xxi
Kristol, Irving, xvi–xvii
Krock, Arthur, 90–91
Kulik, James, 307n13
Kydland, Finn E., 24
labor-saving machinery narrative, 174–76, 175f; counternarrative to, 178; depression of 1873–79
and, 174, 176–78; depression of 1893–97 and, 174, 179–81; early history of, 174–76; economic

decisions affected by, 209; economic effects of narrative itself, 211; fear during Great Depression
and, 109; increasingly vivid before 1930, 182–86; office workplace and, 186; opportunity during
dot-com boom and, 109; robots and, 181–82; underconsumption or overproduction theory and,
187–89, 191–92; unemployment and, xiv, 9, 130, 177–81, 187–88, 191–92. See also technological
unemployment narrative
labor unions: associated by public with organized crime, 260; automation and, 200, 202; boycotts
used by, 241; trends in public support for, 258–59, 266, 320n2; wage cuts in depression of 1920–21
and, 249, 251; wage-price spiral and, 258–60, 261, 263, 264
Lacoste, Jean René, 62, 63
Laffer, Art, 42, 44–45
Laffer curve narrative, xviii, 24, 42–47, 48, 51, 52; exogenous effect on economy, 76; impact on
output and prices, 48; in supply-side economics constellation, 47–48; two epidemics in appearance
of, 42, 43f
laissez-faire narrative, in second half of twentieth century, 50
Lakoff, George, 17
land: federal regulation of interstate sales of, 317n15; home prices and, 215, 216; narrative about its
scarcity and value, 212; not depreciating like the home, 215; as percentage of home’s value, 214,
317n5; sold as investment in undeveloped property, 220–21
land bubbles, 213
land speculation, 213; Florida boom of 1920s, 214, 215, 220–21; marketing of undeveloped land
before Great Depression and, 220
Lang, Fritz, 203
Lange, Dorothea, 131
Laughlin, J. Laurence, 312n10
The Law of Success in 16 Lessons (Hill), 121–22
Lazarsfeld, Paul F., 297
leading indicators: in economic forecasting, 125, 309n10; epidemic models instead of search for,
295; narratives causing changes in, 276; underlying human behavior and, xv
learning, narrative-centered, 77–78
Le Bon, Gustave, 59, 119
leveraged buyouts, 47
Levi Strauss Company, 148
libertarianism, and hacker ethic, 7
Liebhold, Peter, 44
Lincoln, Abraham, 101
Lindgren, Astrid, 49
Linglong’s Dingdong, 207
linguistics and narrative, 16–17, 94–95
Linux operating system, 7
listening as a research method, 281
literary studies and narrative, 15–16, 286
Livermore, Shaw, ix
Loftus, Elizabeth F., 78
logos on clothing and shoes, 62–63; on blue jeans, 148
Long, Elisa F., 295
Lopokova, Lydia, 26
Lorayne, Harry, 46–47
“lost decade” story, 95, 150
Love Is a Story (Sternberg), 79–80
Lovejoy, E. P., 14

Lubell, Samuel, 200
Lucas, George, 203
Luddite event in 1811, 174, 176
Luddite narrative, 9, 185; in 1930s, 186–87
Lujan, Sterlin, 6
Machill, Marcel, 77
machine learning, 207–8, 211
machines replacing jobs. See labor-saving machinery narrative
“The Machine Stops” (Forster), 181
Mackay, Charles, 59, 119
MacMullen, Ramsay, 14
Malabre, Alfred L., Jr., 202
Mallon, Mary, 20
Mann, Dorothea Lawrence, 60
Marden, Orison Swett, 122
marketers: contagion rate engineered by, 60; lowering the forgetting rate, 62; profiting from
narratives, xiii, 62; recurrence of narratives due to, 109–10
marketing: with accelerated analytics, 20; appeals to patriotism in, 155; background music and, 67;
bizarre mental images in, 46; book jackets and, 60–61; contagion of economic narratives and, 60–
63, 297; detested by many consumers, 62; focus group methods developed for, 283; logos and, 62–
63, 148; self-referencing in, 77; social media used for, 274–75; of “the news,” 61–62
Marx, Groucho, 133
Marx, Karl, 102
master narrative, 92
master plots in fiction, 16
maximize shareholder value, 47–48
May, John Allan, 38
McCall, Samuel W., 168
McCormick, Anne O’Hare, 140, 143
McGinn, Daniel, 217–18
McKinley, William, 163, 164, 171, 313n29
McQuiggan, Scott W., 77–78
Meany, George, 202
“Measurement without Theory” (Koopmans), xv
Meeker, Royal, 245
Mellon, Andrew, 44
Meloney, Marie, 220
memes, 60, 88
Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions (Mackay), 59, 119
memory: aided by rituals and symbols, 62; aided by visual stimuli, 45, 46–47; collective, 60;
contagion of narratives and, 252; fear-related brain circuitry and, 57–58; flashbulb memory, 80–83,
233, 307n13; source monitoring in, 84, 307n21. See also forgetting, in epidemic model
Men and Machines (Chase), 185
mentors for young people, 274
Merrill, Charles, 167
Merton, Robert K., 73, 198, 281
metanarrative, 92
metaphors, 16, 17; of economy as sick or healthy, 79
meteorology narratives, 123