Tell me a story about money: why we need narratives to understand economics. From the article:

Ask any college student or professor why this big shift from studying Chaucer to studying coding is happening and they will probably tell you it’s about jobs. As students feared for their job prospects, they — and their parents — wanted a degree that would lead to a steady paycheck after graduation. The perception is that STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) is the path to employment. Majors in computer science and health fields have nearly doubled from 2009 to 2017. Engineering and math have also seen big jumps.

As humanities majors slump to the lowest level in decades, calls are coming from surprising places for a revival. Some prominent economists are making the case for why it still makes a lot of sense to major (or at least take classes) in humanities alongside more technical fields.

Nobel Prize winner Robert Shiller’s new book Narrative Economics opens with him reminiscing about an enlightening history class he took as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan. He wrote that what he learned about the Great Depression was far more useful in understanding the period of economic and financial turmoil than anything he learned in his economic courses….

“Traditional economic approaches fail to examine the role of public beliefs in major economic events — that is, narrative,’ Shiller wrote. “Economists can best advance their science by developing and incorporating into it the art of narrative economics.”…

When asked if he’s essentially arguing for more English and history majors, Shiller said, “I think so,” adding: “Compartmentalization of intellectual life is bad.”

Shiller isn’t alone in wishing that there were more storytellers (and story analyzers) around. Every August, some of the world’s top economists gather in Jackson Hole, Wyo., to discuss how the economy is doing and how they should tweak their models. On the final day of events this year, Philip Lowe, head of Australia’s central bank, urged his colleagues to spend a little less time on numbers and more time on being good storytellers….

Perhaps the most powerful argument for why students (and their parents) might want to think twice about abandoning humanities is the data. The National Center for Education Statistics also keeps track of pay and unemployment rates by major.

There’s no denying that the typical computer science major makes more money shortly after graduation than the typical English major.

Contrary to popular belief, English majors ages 25 to 29 had a lower unemployment rate in 2017 than math and computer science majors.

That early STEM pay premium also fades quickly, according to research by David J. Deming and Kadeem L. Noray from Harvard. After about a decade, STEM majors start exiting their job fields as their skills are no longer the latest and greatest. In contrast, many humanities majors work their way to high-earning management positions. By middle age, average pay looks very similar across many majors….

In management and leadership positions, communication is key, as leading economists and central bankers have been quick to point out at this critical juncture for the world economy.

h/t Philip Slaby

For other posts on humanities narrative in the fields of business and healthcare, see here and here.