Paul Erdman, a world-class economist and banker who used his knowledge of economics and politics to write best-selling novels, died at his Sonoma County ranch Monday after a long battle with cancer. He was 74. Erdman was widely regarded as having popularized financial fiction, a genre he affectionately called fi-fi, with novels such as THE BILLION-DOLLAR SURE THING, THE CRASH OF '79 and THE PANIC OF '89. One of his greatest achievements, his daughter Constance Erdman Narea told the SF Chronicle, "was inspiring intellectual curiosity." Erdman is survived by his wife, Helly , of the family home in Sonoma County; two daughters, Jennifer Erdman of Healdsburg and Constance Erdman Narea of Greenwich, Conn.; and two granddaughters.

He also had an unusual literary start after he began writing THE BILLION-DOLLAR SURE THING during an early 1970s jail stint in Switzerland after his privately-owned bank collapsed in the wake of speculation on cocoa & silver futures. Reflecting on his time in jail, Erdman concluded that from a business standpoint, at least, it had been of considerable benefit. As he told The American Banker in 1996, "It was what you call a successful career change."