It was bewildering, wasn't it? The Jade Goody episode, I mean. Who, after all, was she? And why would anyone pay her anything to be on television?

If you are like me, you won't have met many people who begrudged her the money. Or who were unmoved by her story. Most people think she was entitled to sell her own story if she wanted, and if she could do something for the young family she tragically left behind, then good on her.

But still. It was a bit, well, confusing. Her behaviour was understandable. But ours? That takes a bit more explaining.

In 1981 the economist Sherwin Rosen provided the classic account of the structure of what he termed “superstar” wages. When someone sells you a hamburger, you consume it. You pay a small amount of money to take possession of the hamburger and you enjoy it alone. That is, you are the only person who can benefit from the item once you have paid for it.

A superstar sportsman is enjoyed differently. You might be willing to pay only the same amount to watch a top sports star that you are prepared to pay for a hamburger. But when you enjoy the sportsman you do not reduce anyone else's enjoyment. Other people can enjoy him at the same time.

The hamburger-maker's income is limited by the number of individual burgers he can make and sell. The top sportsman doesn't have the same limit. For playing the one game he can get income from an almost infinite number of potential paying spectators. Hence the incredible wages of the Premier League household names.

There is, however, a twist. One hamburger-maker is much like another. Each of them makes a little money, one broadly the same as his peer. But one footballer is not very much like another. Spectators are all able to enjoy the same players without reducing the enjoyment of fellow spectators, which means that everyone wants and is able to pay to watch the best. And no one much wants to watch those even slightly below those few at the very top.

So the income distribution among footballers is very skewed. A few at the top are paid a ridiculous fortune, and you don't have to go very far down the talent scale before you have quite brilliantly skilled individuals paid very little indeed.

What, though, about Jade? She scooped the pool financially, but it is hard to argue, for all that her young death was terrible, that she was excessively talented. She was clearly savvy, and had a certain vulnerable charm that was quite appealing. But these are reasonably commonplace attributes. And Jade didn't even win Big Brother.

So why did so many people give a little bit of money to read about her or watch her, giving her a superstar wage, while other housemates, or all the others just like Jade, earn almost nothing?

The academic Moshe Adler provides an explanation. Not only does one person's consumption of a superstar's talent not reduce another's enjoyment of it, it actually enhances that enjoyment. One of the things we are paying for is the ability to gossip about stars, shake our heads over their antics, marvel at their clothes and laugh at their choice of partner. And for this enjoyment the talent of the star doesn't really matter all that much.

No one will pay to read a story about an individual no one has heard of or few remember. But if, by a process, perhaps, of chaotic accident, one person becomes emblazoned on the public mind, then that person's behaviour becomes suddenly worth paying for. If they are talentless then we can all have fun discussing the fact that they are talentless.

A University of Zurich study on the economics of Pop Idol casts a bit more light on this process. The authors show how talent and remuneration aren't that closely aligned. But when they looked at where the money went they discovered that it was the entrepreneurs behind the show who really raked it in. In other words these people were earning the superstar wage.

I expect that if, in years to come, some academic studies the economics of Jade Goody, they will find that she wasn't the biggest financial winner out of the extraordinary industry she became. And I, for one, haven't got much of an argument with that.

Following my story about economists, people have been sending me jokes with an intellectual bent. These are always welcome. My favourite this week?

f(x) goes into a bar and asks for a drink. “I'm sorry,” the barman says.“We don't cater for functions.”

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