Of manias, panics and crashes

“A LOT more economists than you might think can write well,” says Peter Dougherty, Princeton University Press's economics editor, who is compiling an anthology to be called “The Elegant Economist”. A slim volume, you might imagine, but Mr Dougherty reels off a long list of those who have put aside equations and supplied a well-turned phrase to explain the dismal science. Adam Smith wrote memorably sometimes, but he is a harder read than John Maynard Keynes or Milton Friedman, let alone John Kenneth Galbraith, so stylish a writer that he was once asked to join the English faculty at Berkeley. Mr Dougherty ranks Paul Krugman and John Kay, who each have a newspaper column, as the best today. He believes there is more talent among economics writers now than ever, perhaps fittingly as a result of fiercer competition. But, says Mr Dougherty, the “model for economists who want to reach a wider audience” was surely Charles Kindleberger, who died on July 7th, aged 92.