The Narrative Approach in Economics[La démarche narrative en économie]

Economic analysis appears primarily based on modelisation and making use of quantitative methods. In particular narratives on case studies which had for long prevailed in industrial economics have noticeably receded. Yet, is it as straightforward? Is it not thinkable to propose a structured narrative approach that would have increased scientific legitimacy and added diversity in the field? The paper focuses on these issues.The first part discusses to what extent narratives may be said having disappeared from economics scientific production. It illustrates that they still play an effective ancillary role as a key source for theorisation. Evidence is given from the analysis of the qwerty story and its relationship to the emergence of the path dependency theory. Other seminal economic works are reviewed which show that, properly performed, the narrative approach has scope for bringing new insights under the dominant quantitative perspective.Then, the second part of the paper concentrates on the narrative approach as an exploratory method and on the circumstances under which it may lead to innovative developments.