William Bishop has written an interesting and important article on an issue that has puzzled legal scholars for quite some time: the general non-recoverability of pure economic loss.' Pure economic loss arises out of interference with a plaintiff's contractual relations or with his non-contractual prospective gain. Physical loss to person or property, where it occurs at all, is restricted to third parties. If the plaintiff's person or property had been injured by the wrongful conduct of another and financial loss were associated with that, then there would obviously be no bar to recovery. But where economic loss is not associated with the plaintiff's physical loss it is often said that the law disallows recovery. While this is something of an exaggeration,2 the rule of non-recovery has been repeated often enough by the courts to warrant some form of explanation. Bishop's article is extremely complex. The various points he makes are sometimes subject to so many qualifications that the basic thrust of his argument can be very unclear.3 In addition, the distinction between normative and positive analysis, which is usually emphasized by economists, is not adhered to as rigorously as one would hope. At the outset, we are told that 'the principal focus of this paper is not positive but normative'.4 In the conclusion, on the other hand, he emphasizes that, generally speaking, the courts 'have reached results that seem broadly efficient'.' The positive-normative distinction is important because if Bishop intends to present a normative case for courts deciding economic loss questions in accordance with efficiency criteria then he needs to present arguments as to its desirability. He has, in fact, presented none and I seriously