The Handbook of Research on E-Portfolios is the single source for comprehensive coverage of the major themes of e-portfolios, addressing all of the major issues, from concept to technology to implementation. It is the first reference publication to provide a complete investigation on a variety of e-portfolio uses through case studies and supporting technologies, and also explains the conceptual thinking behind current uses and potential uses not yet implemented. Over 70 international experts with countless years of experience lend this handbook the credibility that assures its readers of its extensive, recent, and reliable content. ""The Handbook of Research on E-Portfolios"" is the first handbook to investigate commercial and academic e-portfolio systems - home-grown, off the shelf, and open source - and to supply proof-of-concept evidence of successful systems.

Reinsurance is an invisible service industry which enables insurance companies to insure more risks and to make better use of their resources. Until recently, reinsurers were only known to a small minority outside the insurance community. Major disasters, especially those caused by natural catastrophes, have increasingly brought the industry into the spotlight. Yet what is perceived today by a wider public still only represents a fraction of the industry, and the mechanisms of reinsurance to deal with global risk exposure are virtually unknown. The Value of Risk provides an overview of how today's reinsurance industry developed. It investigates for the first time the role of reinsurers in a changing risk, economic, and market environment. Harold James explains the fundamental principles of insuring and outlines the evolution of the industry in his introductory essay. In Part I, Peter Borscheid describes in detail the global spread of modern insurance, which emerged in the late eighteenth century amidst ideas of rationalism which attempted to quantify risk in monetary terms, the setbacks it encountered, and how the market environment changed over time. Professional reinsurance emerged with the rise in insured risks in the industrialising mid-nineteenth century. By the time the San Francisco Earthquake happened in 1906 the reinsurance industry had become well established and showed a remarkable ability to deal collectively with the catastrophe. David Gugerli describes in Part II how the industry as a whole dealt with such challenges but also the numerous exposures to a changing risk landscape. Against this background, in Part III Tobias Straumann examines the history of the Swiss Reinsurance Company, founded in 1863, providing a fascinating example of how professional risk taking was developed over the last 150 years.

The history of the Rio Grande since the late nineteenth century reflects the evolution of water-resource management in the West. It was here that the earliest interstate and international water-allocation problems pitted irrigators in southern New Mexico against farmers downstream in El Paso and Juarez, with the voluntary resolution of that conflict setting important precedents for national and international water law.

In this first scholarly treatment of the politics of water law along the Rio Grande, Douglas R. Littlefield describes those early interstate and international water- apportionment conflicts and explains how they relate to the development of western water law and policy and to international relations with Mexico. Littlefield embraces environmental, legal, and social history to offer clear analyses of appropriation and riparian water rights doctrines, along with lucid accounts of court cases and laws. Examining events that led up to the 1904 settlement among U.S. and Mexican communities and the formation of the Rio Grande Compact in 1938, Littlefield describes how communities grappled over water issues as much with one another as with governmental authorities.

"Conflict on the Rio Grande" reveals the transformation of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century law, traces changing attitudes about the role of government, and examines the ways these changes affected the use and eventual protection of natural resources. Rio Grande water policy, Littlefield shows, represents federalism at work--and shows the West, in one locale at least, coming to grips with its unique problems through negotiation and compromise.

This book provides a long-term perspective on policies regarding intergovernmental grants in the US since the 1970s. This period spans six presidential administrations and encompasses a diverse set of political and economic conditions. Containing original research, this book contributes to critical assessments of intergovernmental grant issues such as: whether state and local government spending responds symmetrically to increases or decreases in federal aid the effects of converting categorical grants to block grants on program spending; and the political economy of federal aid distribution. >The author's empirical analyses are based on a unique data set of US federal intergovernmental grants and cover a range of programs, including transportation, substance abuse prevention and treatment, and community development and welfare. The book is a rich source of material on intergovernmental grants and fiscal relations for scholars and practitioners in public policy, political science, economics and public finance.

Law and the Financial System: Securitization and Asset Backed Securities provides students and practitioners with a comprehensive source of materials and references for understanding the process and issues that surround the conversion of illiquid financial assets into tradable securities. The book begins with an overview of the financial system and the place of securitization in the system. The book focuses on the process and law of securitization and is derived largely from Tamar Frankel's treaties, Securitization (2nd ed. 2005). The book concludes with a global view of securitization and an assessment of the impact and future of securitizing financial assets. The legal text is enhanced with case studies and simulation exercises that bring context and practical application to the subject. Study questions covering law, business and public policy provide students with an opportunity to discuss and debate areas where answers are complex and often indeterminate. Simulation exercises enable students to test their own ideas with their peers using real world examples. The book can be used as a stand alone course on securitization or as a supplementary text for courses on financial regulation. Practitioners will find the book a useful desk reference. This is the second book co-authored by Mark Fagan and Tamar Frankel. The first was "Trust and Honesty in the Real World" (2007). About the authors: Tamar Frankel authored Fiduciary Law (2008), Trust and Honesty, America's Business Culture at a Crossroad (2006), Securitization (2d.ed 2006), The Regulation of Money Managers (2d ed. 2001 with Ann Taylor Schwing), and more than 70 articles. A long-time member of the Boston University School of Law faculty, Professor Frankel was a visiting scholar at the Securities and Exchange Commission and at the Brookings Institution. A native of Israel, Professor Frankel served in the Israeli Air Force, was an assistant attorney general for Israel's Ministry of Justice and the legal advisor of the State of Israel Bonds Organization in Europe. She practiced in Israel, Boston and Washington, D.C. and is a member of the Massachusetts Bar, the American Law Institute, and The American Bar Foundation. Mr. Fagan's research centers on the role of regulation in competitive markets. He has written about the impact of deregulation in the financial, transportation and electricity sectors. He teaches courses and guest lectures at Boston University School of Law and at Harvard Kennedy School. He has been a frequent seminar speaker at Harvard Kennedy School's Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government; recent topics include the subprime disaster, securitization, Ponzi schemes, and financial bubbles. Mark Fagan is a founding partner of Norbridge, Inc. a general management consulting firm. He works with clients in the transportation, telecommunications and utility industries as they grapple with increasing shareholder value in a deregulated world. Prior to Norbridge, he was a Vice President of Mercer Management Consulting.

Robert Greifeld was CEO of NASDAQ for over a decade, during which time it was named Company of the Year, ranked one of the best performing companies in the U.S., included in Fortune's annual list of 100 fastest growing companies and shares of the company's stock rose a whopping 800%.

In Market Mover, Bob looks at the headline-making events that took place while he was at the helm from the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the financial crisis of 2008, to Facebook's disastrous IPO and the Bernie Madoff scandal. He takes you exclusively behind the headlines using them as jumping off points for lessons that can be applied to any business, including jumpstarting change, working with technology, finding the best people, and adapting to globalization.

This book is an important addition to the emerging body of new work on capital. Its primary contribution is in analysing capital investment choice as a process. The understanding of this process requires some modification and significant extension to the standard neo-classical economic tools.Capital and Uncertainty is a non-mathematical text, modernizing and adding to the existing thought in this area, with insights from game theory, rational choice under uncertainty and new institutional economics. Dr Runge also draws upon 25 years of business experience in setting out a thorough and immensely practical exposition of the risk/return trade-off and how major capital investment decisions are made within firms. Topics studied include: the nature of capital investment decisions entrepreneurship and the market order capital investment choice processes capital investment models capital decisions: choices between strategies Economists, industrial organisation specialists, business academics and practitioners alike will all find this book of immense interest and use.

Since the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia has experienced a process of rapid fiscal decentralisation: its 88 regions are now in charge of almost half of total budgetary expenditure, while an overhaul of the revenue allocation system has given them substantial control over locally collected revenue. These regions are highly diverse in climate, natural resources and economic development, with some much better equipped than others to adjust to market conditions. Fiscal Federalism in Russia examines the combined impact of decentralisation and diversity on regional equality of service provision and in particular the provision of education. The book begins with an analysis of the system of intergovernmental transfers and goes on to explore the nature and extent of disparities in education spending, paying particular attention to regions where spending has fallen furthest. The book also contains a case study of the allocation decisions affecting the education sector within a single region, Novgorod Oblast, in North-West Russia. Based entirely on field research, the study provides a rare insight into the decision making process at regional and local level, as well as an analysis of the extent of internal revenue and spending disparities. Academics, researchers and those interested in decentralisation or the economics of transition will warmly welcome this detailed analysis of the direction and impact of inter-governmental transfers in Russia.