“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.