This book integrates corporate governance, corporate finance and accounting to formulate sound financial management strategies. It offers practical steps for managers using an integrated optimisation financial model to achieve good corporate governance practices which lead to lower risks and higher firm value.

Italian Banking and Financial Law provides a thorough overview of the banking sector in Italy, offering historical perspectives, insight into current developments and suggestions for future evolution.

This book provides a hands-on, practical guide to understanding derivatives pricing. Aimed at the less quantitative practitioner, it provides a balanced account of options, Greeks and hedging techniques avoiding the complicated mathematics inherent to many texts, and with a focus on modelling, market practice and intuition.

Volatility in Korean Capital Markets summarizes the Korean experience of volatile capital flows, analyzes the economic consequences, evaluates the policy measures adopted, and suggests new measures for the future.

This book is an examination of the sovereign risk and debt limit issues facing the Eurozone (crisis/post crisis) and the need for alternative mechanisms to fund the capital investment requirements of the region.

Emerging Markets and Sovereign Risk provides case studies, commentary and analysis on the financial risk management and measurement in the context of frontier and developing counties from international experts covering three key areas of emerging market investments, the rating sovereign risk and managing sovereign risk.

Stock Message Boards provides empirical data to reveal how online communication not only impacts stock returns, but also volatility, trading volume, and liquidity, as well as an investing firm's value and reputation.

The Corporate Financiers is the fifth book in a series of discussions about the great minds in the history and theory of finance. While the series addresses the contributions of scholars in our understanding of modern finance, this volume presents the ways in which a corporation creates value. More than two centuries ago, Adam Smith explained the concept of division of labor and the efficiencies of specialization as the mechanism in which a firm creates value. However, corporations now find themselves outsourcing some processes to other firms as an alternative way to create value. There must be other economic forces at work than simply the internal efficiencies of a firm. We begin by describing the work of a rather obscure scholar named John Burr Williams who demonstrated in 1938 how the earnings of a firm are capitalized into corporate value through its stock price. We then delve into the inner workings of the modern corporation by describing the contributions of Nobel Memorial Prize winners Ronald Coase and Oliver Williamson. More than any others, these scholars created a renewed appreciation for our understanding of the institutional detail of the modern corporation in reducing costs and increasing efficiency. While Coase and Williamson provided meaningful descriptions of the advantage of a corporation, they did not offer prescriptions for the avenues the corporation can create more value in an era when new technologies make outsourcing and telecommuting increasingly possible. Michael Jensen and William Meckling describe in greater detail the nature of the implicit contracts a corporation employs, and recommend remedies to various problems that arise when the goals of the corporation are not aligned with the incentives of its agents. We also describe the further nuances to these relationships as offered by Armen Alchian and Harold Demsetz. We treat the lives of these extraordinary individuals who looked at a very familiar problem in a sufficiently novel light to change the way all look at corporations ever since. That is the test of genius.

Fixed and Marginal Costs in Electricity Markets lays out clear cost methodologies for understanding marginal price structures, further cementing electricity's role as an asset class with fixed and variable costs.

Since their explosion in the mid-1990s, mergers and acquisitions (M&As) have turned into a global phenomenon with growing prevalence. A large number of theoretical and empirical studies focus on cross-border deals from several perspectives, such as motives, strategic issues, and performance. Most books treat these studies as specific characteristics of M&As, paying little attention to the distinctive elements that differentiate them from domestic operations. In short, there is now a real need for a fresh review and categorization of cross-border deals. Cross-Border Mergers and Acquisitions is the first book to provide readers with a complete guide to understanding the main concepts, theories, and results driving cross-border M&As. Morresi and Pezzi present an original framework that ties together the growing body of theoretical and empirical studies on the topic. This work describes the relevance of the phenomenon in terms of its economical, geographical, and historical impact, and analyzes the market- and accounting-based performance of cross-border deals.

The funding of innovative projects that are fundamentally ambiguous often leads to situations where decision-making is difficult. However, decision-making can be improved by practices such as syndication and step-by-step funding. The dynamic of this industry requires us to consider the economic and institutional variables that make this system coherent in English-speaking countries, but conversely reduce it to a privileged niche by the leading authorities in Europe and France. This book proposes two guiding ideas. The first idea presents innovation as a very uncertain process. This modifies the decision-making in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, with intervention upstream in regards to stronger foundations, evaluations and selection of projects. The second idea is that the actors hold onto partial knowledge in a context where their attention span is limited. These cognitive limitations need the formation of networks, and lead to mutual and complementary dependency relations.

State-controlled listed companies have always dominated Chinese stock markets. As a result of the rampant scandals related to them, there have been voluminous academic efforts to explore their corporate governance, underpinned by agency costs. However, these studies have yet to examine the phenomenon from the perspective of venture capital and adaptive efficiency. During the last ten years, despite China's remarkable progress in the development of its venture capital market, its domestic venture capital has been marginalized by American competitors. Given the different performance between them, the author contends that the corporate governance system of Chinese state-controlled listed companies has hampered the performance of the institutional factors which are responsible for the prosperity of American venture capital in Chinese venture capital markets. With the practice of American venture capital as the mirror, he empirically demonstrates that Chinese domestic venture capital lacks the four factors related to the success of their American counterparts: large and independent funding, application of incentive mechanisms, efficient exit channels, and a high risk tolerance level. More importantly, these defects as a whole are closely linked to the corporate governance of state-controlled listed companies. Considering the potential negative consequences on economic and social development, the author identifies policy reforms underway to harmonize agency costs and adaptive efficiency.

Open Innovation through Strategic Alliances demonstrates the vital role and applications of strategic alliances between firms and research organizations in creating and applying knowledge for the development of new products, technologies, or business models.

As interest in MBA programs and business schools more generally continues to grow, it is essential that teachers and students analyse their established strategy for decision making. The successful use of case studies in business schools shows the superior outcomes of an interdisciplinary approach to problem solving. Disappointingly, functional departmental silos within universities still exist and keep problem solvers from seeing all the effects of a given issue. In addition to providing teaching material, Decision Making in Marketing and Finance provides motives and strategies to break down functional silos in making informed and effective business and finance decisions. Koku achieves his goal by showing how value can be created for shareholders and other stakeholders, linking marketing and finance decision making, and providing much-needed teaching materials for an interdisciplinary approach to case analysis.

Risk and Return in Asian Emerging Markets offers readers a firm insight into the risk and return characteristics of leading Asian emerging market participants by comparing and contrasting behavioral model variables with predictive forecasting methods.

Over the last two decades there has been a notable increase in the number of corporate governance codes and principles, as well as a range of improvements in structures and mechanisms. Despite this, corporate governance failed to prevent a widespread default of fiduciary duties of corporate boards and managerial responsibilities in the finance industry, which contributed to the 2007 2010 global financial crisis. This book brings together leading scholars from North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East to provide fresh and critical analytical insights on the systemic failures of corporate governance linked to the global financial crisis. Contributors draw from a range of disciplines to demonstrate the severe limitations of the dominant corporate governance framework and its associated market-oriented approach. They provide suggestions on how the governance problems could be tackled to prevent or mitigate any future financial crisis and explore new directions for post-crisis corporate governance research and reforms.

Absence of Arbitrage Valuation presents a unified asset pricing strategy through absence of arbitrage and applies this framework to such disparate fields as fixed income security pricing, foreign exchange spots, and forward rates.

The business cycle is a complex phenomenon. On the surface, it involves a multitude of mechanisms, such as oscillations in interest rates, prices, wages, unemployment, output, and spending. But a deeper understanding requires a unifying theory to make these various parts whole. Money, Banking, and the Business Cycle provides a comprehensive framework for analyzing these mechanisms, and offers a robust prescription for reducing financial instability over the long-term. Volume II refutes Keynesian and real business cycle theories and provides policy prescriptions to virtually eliminate the cycle. Simpson offers a detailed analysis of several historical monetary systems around the world and shows the causes and effects of fiat money and fractional-reserve banking, as well as a 100-percent reserve gold standard.

As well as reviewing traditional models, this book proposes an alternative model for estimating the cost of risk capital. This model, known as CaRM (Capital at Risk Model), bases the cost estimate of risk capital on VaR (Value at Risk) for the very first time. This book is an ideal resource for developing valuation research in SMEs.

This project examines the concept of fraud loss measurement by critiquing existing measurement methodologies, and argues for the mandating of fraud loss measurement by enforced self regulation, the creation of a British Standard of fraud loss measurement, and the establishment of an information exchange matrix to develop best practice.

Value-Based Working Capital Management analyzes the causes and effects of improper cash flow management between entrepreneurial organizations with varying levels of risk. This work looks at the motives and criteria for decision-making by entrepreneurs in their efforts to protect the financial security of their businesses and manage financial liquidity. Michalski argues that businesses exposed to greater risk need a different approach to managing liquidity levels.

Money, Banking, and the Business Cycle provides a comprehensive framework for analyzing these mechanisms, and offers a robust prescription for reducing financial instability over the long-term. Volume I bridges tough economic theory with empirical evidence.

Banking Regulation in China provides an in-depth analysis of the country's contemporary banking regulatory system, focusing on regulation in practice. By drawing on public and private interest theories relating to bank regulation, He argues that controlled development of the banking sector transformed China's banks into more market-oriented institutions and increased public sector growth. This work proves that bank regulation is the primary means through which the Chinese government achieves its political and economic objectives rather than using it as a vehicle for maintaining efficient financial markets.

White-collar crime is defined both in terms of the offence and in terms of the offender. The offence is often financial by nature, taking the form of fraud, tax evasion, corruption, and insider trading. The offender is typically a person of respectability and high social status, who commits crime in the course of his occupation. When prosecuted in court, white-collar criminals are defended by lawyers, a knowledge worker specializing in the development and application of legal knowledge to solve client problems. Research into the roles of lawyers in white-collar crime is important since it provides new information into a specific area of legal advice linked to corporate and occupational economic crime.
Financial Crime and Knowledge Workers examines the role of lawyers in court cases involving white-collar crimes, revealing fresh insights into the relationship between a lawyer's stature and a case's potential verdict. Gottschalk peels back the theoretical layers surrounding the term 'knowledge worker' and showcases empirical data to support his claims. This work also discusses the three distinct strategies white-collar attorneys use to defend their clients.

An executive level guide to implementing or extending an enterprise risk management (ERM) framework in an organization. Avoiding complex modeling topics, and unnecessary theory, this book cuts to the heart of the topic, describing what ERM is, why it is important, what constitutes ERM and how it can be implemented to add value to an organization.