>Well, the likes of Krugman and Stiglitz in America and Gittins and (when he
>wants to) Walsh in Australia manage to say their mainstream economics
>pieces so I, sans any economics background at all, can confidently
>disagree.
Rob, did you ever read any of Stiglitz' academic work? It's almost all math. As far as I can tell, though the math is impenetrable to me, he's not saying much that couldn't be said in ordinary prose, but you can't be sanctified as a theorist in economics these days without speaking in equations. Michael Perelman told me that he ran into Stiglitz at a conference once and mentioned that Ricardo stated the theory of adverse selection - one of the things for which Stiglitz is famous - in ordinary prose 200 years ago, and Stiglitz was surprised to hear this.
Doug