A recent New Yorker article by Charles Duhigg ties together nicely several threads of emerging finance that are worthy of notice.
The first is the power of narrative economics (and finance) championed by Robert Shiller. My review of his 2019 book by that name appeared on the New Books Network. Shiller’s argument stands in stark contrast to the orthodox model of classical economics.
The second is that investment bubbles of the type we are now seeing with SPACs can and have in the past left behind substantial technological and financial innovation after the bubble has burst and much money lost. That’s one of the main points made by William Quinn and John Turner in their recent Boom & Bust (2020). My interview with Quinn can be heard here.
The New Yorker article’s main focus, a biopic on one of today’s leading storytellers, falls into an older category of anlaysis, indeed, an age-old one.