21 MAY 1994, Page 25

Cyclical

PAUL KRUGMAN in his new book Ped- dling Prosperity puts forward the economic theory of reincarnation: 'If you are a good economist, a virtuous economist, you are reborn as a physicist. But if you are a bad, wicked economist, you are reborn as a soci- ologist.' This may explain why there are so many sociologists about.