Lest this all sound like a dismal accounting of child-rearing by the dismal science, Prof.

WSJ: Kids Can Be Costly Long After They Turn 18

If the dismal science is essentially about how to use scarce resources efficiently, this is indeed economics in action.

ECONOMIST: Face value

The dismal science traditionally assumes that people know their own interests, and are best left to mind their own business.

ECONOMIST: Affluence

The dismal science was to the fore in the Holyrood chamber today.

BBC: Looking at the books

Central bankers in plusher postings should find a moment to toast Mr Nicholl, and his efforts to pit the dismal science against the warrior's art.

ECONOMIST: Building Bosnia on banknotes

Though its proponents of the dismal science, such as Ronald Coase, Milton Friedman and George Stigler, have earned it wider fame in recent decades, the university has produced just as many natural scientists of distinction.

ECONOMIST: To natural assets add art, learning and fun

Because not only did most economists miss the crisis, they committed the even more pernicious sin of missing the recovery, essentially taking the Dismal Science to quadriplegic status from its prior condition of being merely hobbled.

FORBES: The Age Of The Rockstar Economist Comes To An End

In a ranking of 15-year-olds in 30 industrialised countries in 2006, American teenagers came a dismal 21st in science and 25th in maths.

ECONOMIST: The long, slow effort to set standards