Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel prizewinner in economics, scourge of the International Monetary Fund and all-round charmer, is getting married. Invitations to his forthcoming union with Anya Schiffrin, journalist turned academic and saloniste of Manhattan's Upper West Side, adopt a characteristically left-of-centre approach to the question of wedding gifts.

There's no list at Bloomingdale's. Instead, guests wondering what to give to the author of Globalization and Its Discontents and The Roaring Nineties are asked to consider a donation to Democrat John Kerry's presidential election campaign.