Tell me—how can you possibly pass up a book with the title An Economist Walks Into A Brothel? And on top of that, it promised to talk about risk management. So I couldn’t resist. True, from the title you expect to learn about risks of a very different kind, but still…
In reality, the book is meant to explain the risks in our lives through examples of how people in completely different professions deal with them. And yes, the book starts with a description of how one of the largest brothels in Nevada operates: what risks sex workers face, and how a legal brothel helps address them compared to freelance sex workers.
I have to admit, it’s a genuinely unconventional approach, and Allison Schrager—who specializes in working with risk—managed to attract a lot of readers that way.
And besides sex workers, her examples include paparazzi, a professional poker player, surfers, horse breeders, and even the military. Using those examples, Allison tries to show both what risk is in itself and different sides of dealing with it, including insurance and hedging.
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