Economists Critical Of Mainstream Economics Not Going Into Academia

Here are three books I have read:

• Paul Ormerod (1994). The Death of Economics. St. Marin's Press.
• Stanley Wong (1978, 2006). Foundations of Paul Samuelson's Revealed Preference Theory: A Study by the Method of Rational Reconstruction. Routledge
• J. E. Woods (1990). The Production of Commodities: An Introduction to Sraffa. Humanities Press.

These authors have two things in common. All three were critical of some aspects of mainstream economics. And they all ended up in business. Looking at the blurbs on their books, I see some spent more time in academia than I recalled.

I wonder if one can find something like a trend. Are there many economists that have come out of well-regarded economics department and had too critical a mind? And they ended up either in business or in departments less well-regarded? Maybe Thomas Palley (Yale?) fits in here.

Of course, there is another phenomenon of engineers, mathematicians, and scientists looking at economics from the outside. Mirowski is good on this theme. John Blatt is somebody Post Keynesians might cite here. Notice, this goes back well before the recent enthusiasm for econophysics.