Ryan Avent is a journalist and author whose work has appeared in the Financial Times, the New York Times, the Atlantic, and the Washington Post, among other places. He covered the global economy for The Economist for 15 years and wrote the Free Exchange economics column for six. Avent is the author of In Good Faith: How the Nature of Belief Shapes the Fate of Societies (2026), The Wealth of Humans: Work, Power, and Status in the Twenty-first Century (2016), and The Gated City (2011). He holds a master’s degree in economic history from the London School of Economics and a bachelor’s degree in economics from North Carolina State University.