Allison Schrager

Allison Schrager is an economist who turned the study of risk into a full-contact reporting beat - hanging out with brothel madams, big-wave surfers, paparazzi and horse breeders to figure out how the best risk-takers actually decide. A senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, Bloomberg Opinion columnist and City Journal contributing editor, she holds a PhD in economics from Columbia and once helped Nobel laureate Robert Merton design retirement products. Her 2019 book 'An Economist Walks into a Brothel' argued that financial theory belongs everywhere people gamble with their futures; her follow-up, 'Worth the Risk,' is due from Yale University Press in September 2026.