Narrative reasoning
“When one attempts to develop models of the world, these start as narrative descriptions within which the imagination is allowed to range freely and widely over many possibilities.” as called “primary narrative”
Remenyi et al. (1998, 98)
Next step is to examine the rewritten narrative to identify possible relationships between the concepts.
Final step is to postulate hypotheses from the theoretical relationships.
Mathematical reasoning
Theoretical economists have traditionally used mathematical reasoning to conceptualize their research, and to formulate hypotheses.