DESNÉ MASIE: Covid-19 mutates into media virus to wipe trillions off stock markets
Bad news spreads until it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy
01 March 2020 - 18:53
I have been watching with great interest as the panicked headlines over the coronavirus Covid-19 wipe trillions off global stock markets.
Financial crises and the behavioural economics around them have long fascinated me — my PhD concerned the effects of media on stock prices and turnover, and the wider effects on the global economy. One of the theories explored in my thesis was on narrative epidemiology — that bad news spreads until it becomes the story itself, a self-fulfilling prophecy...
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