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An Economist Walks into a Brothel
And Other Unexpected Places to Understand Risk
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Wait time: About 2 weeks
Is it worth swimming in shark-infested waters to surf a 50-foot, career-record wave?
Is it riskier to make an action movie or a horror movie?
Should sex workers forfeit 50 percent of their income for added security or take a chance and keep the extra money?
Most people wouldn't expect an economist to have an answer to these questions—or to other questions of daily life, such as who to date or how early to leave for the airport. But those people haven't met Allison Schrager, an economist and award-winning journalist who has spent her career examining how people manage risk in their lives and careers.
Whether we realize it or not, we all take risks large and small every day. Even the most cautious among us cannot opt out—the question is always which risks to take, not whether to take them at all. What most of us don't know is how to measure those risks and maximize the chances of getting what we want out of life.
In An Economist Walks into a Brothel, Schrager equips readers with five principles for dealing with risk, principles used by some of the world's most interesting risk takers. For instance, she interviews a professional poker player about how to stay rational when the stakes are high, a paparazzo in Manhattan about how to spot different kinds of risk, horse breeders in Kentucky about how to diversify risk and minimize losses, and a war general who led troops in Iraq about how to prepare for what we don't see coming.
When you start to look at risky decisions through Schrager's new framework, you can increase the upside to any situation and better mitigate the downside.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
April 2, 2019 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9780525533979
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9780525533979
- File size: 1175 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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March 1, 2019
A colorful, empowering guide to intelligent risk-taking.There's a general misconception that the world is divided into two kinds of people: those who take risks and those who play it safe. Not so, writes economist and Quartz contributor Schrager, co-founder of risk advisory firm LifeCycle Finance Partners, in her debut book. Risk is the author's business, and as she notes, taking risks is something we all do every day. From deciding which mode of transportation to take to cross town to choosing extended warranty plans and purchasing airfare, Schrager defines these "calculated risks" as thinking "about risk more strategically [to] increase the odds that things will work out." However, there is a science to risk-taking "that will maximize the chance of success when you do take a risk," and that science is financial economics, which she boils down to "buying and selling risk." No get-rich-quick manual, the book shows readers how to apply the tools and tenets of finance to their daily lives in order to make the smartest calls and achieve the best possible results. As she explains, "once you learn a few key principles behind financial economics, what makes one risky decision easier than another becomes clearer and you can apply your best risk strategies to every area of your life." Among other topics, the author explores the dynamics of risk using the example of Nevada's Moonlite BunnyRanch Brothel, the idea of hedging with a major David Bowie record deal, diversification through thoroughbred racehorse breeding, and the measurement of risk in Hollywood film financing. Throughout, the author uses highly dense financial concepts and simplifies them into easy-to-grasp capsule analogies. The result is a tightly organized yet punchy volume that's both engaging and educational.Like Freakonomics and similar works, this book breaks the mold of traditional starched-collar, data-dense economics journalism.COPYRIGHT(2019) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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