A state-of-the-art introduction to the powerful mathematical and statistical tools used in the field of finance
The use of mathematical models and numerical techniques is a practice employed by a growing number of applied mathematicians working on applications in finance. Reflecting this development, Numerical Methods in Finance and Economics: A MATLAB?-Based Introduction, Second Edition bridges the gap between financial theory and computational practice while showing readers how to utilize MATLAB?--the powerful numerical computing environment--for financial applications.
The author provides an essential foundation in finance and numerical analysis in addition to background material for students from both engineering and economics perspectives. A wide range of topics is covered, including standard numerical analysis methods, Monte Carlo methods to simulate systems affected by significant uncertainty, and optimization methods to find an optimal set of decisions.
Among this book's most outstanding features is the integration of MATLAB?, which helps students and practitioners solve relevant problems in finance, such as portfolio management and derivatives pricing. This tutorial is useful in connecting theory with practice in the application of classical numerical methods and advanced methods, while illustrating underlying algorithmic concepts in concrete terms.
Newly featured in the Second Edition:
* In-depth treatment of Monte Carlo methods with due attention paid to variance reduction strategies
* New appendix on AMPL in order to better illustrate the optimization models in Chapters 11 and 12
* New chapter on binomial and trinomial lattices
* Additional treatment of partial differential equations with two space dimensions
* Expanded treatment within the chapter on financial theory to provide a more thorough background for engineers not familiar with finance
* New coverage of advanced optimization methods and applications later in the text

Numerical Methods in Finance and Economics: A MATLAB?-Based Introduction, Second Edition presents basic treatments and more specialized literature, and it also uses algebraic languages, such as AMPL, to connect the pencil-and-paper statement of an optimization model with its solution by a software library. Offering computational practice in both financial engineering and economics fields, this book equips practitioners with the necessary techniques to measure and manage risk.

Explains the mathematics, theory, and methods of Big Data as applied to finance and investing Data science has fundamentally changed Wall Street--applied mathematics and software code are increasingly driving finance and investment-decision tools. Big Data Science in Finance examines the mathematics, theory, and practical use of the revolutionary techniques that are transforming the industry. Designed for mathematically-advanced students and discerning financial practitioners alike, this energizing book presents new, cutting-edge content based on world-class research taught in the leading Financial Mathematics and Engineering programs in the world. Marco Avellaneda, a leader in quantitative finance, and quantitative methodology author Irene Aldridge help readers harness the power of Big Data. Comprehensive in scope, this book offers in-depth instruction on how to separate signal from noise, how to deal with missing data values, and how to utilize Big Data techniques in decision-making. Key topics include data clustering, data storage optimization, Big Data dynamics, Monte Carlo methods and their applications in Big Data analysis, and more. This valuable book: Provides a complete account of Big Data that includes proofs, step-by-step applications, and code samples Explains the difference between Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) Covers vital topics in the field in a clear, straightforward manner Compares, contrasts, and discusses Big Data and Small Data Includes Cornell University-tested educational materials such as lesson plans, end-of-chapter questions, and downloadable lecture slides Big Data Science in Finance: Mathematics and Applications is an important, up-to-date resource for students in economics, econometrics, finance, applied mathematics, industrial engineering, and business courses, and for investment managers, quantitative traders, risk and portfolio managers, and other financial practitioners.

First published in 1984, this book gives a historical account of the worldwide development of the theory and practice of inflation accounting (particularly as applied to the financial accounts of corporations). It is a comprehensive account, both in terms of the historical depth and the international breadth of its coverage. The account of the debate in Britain includes the results of original research by the authors, based on interviews and archive material. The book offers important insights not only into the present state and likely future course of the debate on inflation accounting but also into the whole process of setting financial accounting standards. The exposition is kept at a non-technical level wherever possible, but the reader should ideally have the degree of technical expertise which could be acquired by reading the companion volume, Inflation Accounting: an introduction to the debate, by Geoffrey Whittington.

The degree to which markets incorporate information is one of the most important questions facing economists today. This book provides a fascinating study of the existence and extent of information efficiency in financial markets, with a special focus on betting markets. Betting markets are selected for study because they incorporate features highly appropriate to a study of information efficiency, in particular the fact that each bet has a well-defined end point at which its value becomes certain. Using international examples, this book reviews and analyses the issue of information efficiency in both financial and betting markets. Part I is an extensive survey of the existing literature, while Part II presents a range of readings by leading academics. Insights gained from the book will interest students of financial economics, financial market analysts, mathematicians and statisticians, and all those with a special interest in finance or gambling.

The good, the bad, and the scary of Washington's attempt to reform Wall Street

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act is Washington's response to America's call for a new regulatory framework for the twenty-first century.

In "The New Financial Deal," author David Skeel offers an in-depth look at the new financial reforms and questions whether they will bring more effective regulation of contemporary finance or simply cement the partnership between government and the largest banks.Details the goals of the legislation, and reveals that how they are handled could dangerously distort American finance, making it more politically charged, less vibrant, and further removed from basic rule of law principlesProvides an inside account of the legislative processOutlines the key components of the new law

To understand what American financial life is likely to look like in five, ten, or twenty years, and how regulators will respond to the next crisis, we need to understand Dodd-Frank. The New Financial Deal provides that understanding, breaking down both what Dodd-Frank says and what it all means.

An empowering story of learning from life's challenges-with critical insights, strategies, and lessons you can take to the bank In The Probability of Life, Larry Hite tells how he went from dyslexia, partial blindness, and isolation to the founder of Mint, one of the most profitable and largest quantitative hedge funds in the world. Larry's journey presents invaluable lessons gained primarily from failure and those failures seen across humorous stories are packed with timeless investing wisdom. These are the exact lessons that propelled Hite to the top of the investing world. Hite's wisdom gained from a life as an investor comes through on every page. He shows that investing decisions are not only bets or gambles, but investments in time, energy, and attention. By focusing on realistic returns on these investments, versus what we expect or hope to get, we immediately improve our probability for success.

Due to the many changes over the past two decades, the bilingual courses I now teach at Cornell University and NYU Shanghai differ greatly from the Business Chinese courses I taught at the beginning of my teaching career. Although language instruction is still important, the business component - often informed by knowledge of history and culture - has become central to the course. This book is the culmination of my collection, selection, and editing of video materials over a decade. It reflects a combination of my teaching experiences at three universities and continual deliberation and revision. Forty years have passed since China started down the road of reform and opening-up. Although many of the trials and tribulations that China has experienced in the past four decades are far beyond the scope of this small book, all of the cases introduced here touch upon important historical aspects and demonstrate different perspectives when "China met the world." My hope is that readers of this book will appreciate the exciting and critical moments when China changed the world and the world changed China, so as to be intellectually more ready to envision the larger challenges that China will inevitably face when it continuously "meets the world." I also hope that the readers all over the world will gain a deeper understanding of Chinese language, history, and business culture through the bilingual resources that follow.

Roughly 3,300 of the public-use airports across the United States have been determined by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to be significant to national air transportation. These airports form a national airport system intended to provide convenient access to air transportation and support important national functions, such as defense, emergency readiness, and postal delivery. These airports are eligible to receive federal Federal Aviation Administration (AIP) grants to help fund their capital development. Commercial service airports -- if they choose and subject to federal approval -- are also authorised to collect local passenger facility charges (PFC) from passengers, which are also used to fund capital development projects. This book discusses how much national system airports received in funding for capital development projects from 2009 through 2013 and from which sources; the estimated costs of airports' planned capital development from 2015 through 2019; how past funding levels compare with planned development costs; and how changes to AIP funding and the maximum allowable PFC might affect airport funding.

This is the new and totally revised edition of L tkepohl 's classic 1991 work. It provides a detailed introduction to the main steps of analyzing multiple time series, model specification, estimation, model checking, and for using the models for economic analysis and forecasting. The book now includes new chapters on cointegration analysis, structural vector autoregressions, cointegrated VARMA processes and multivariate ARCH models. The book bridges the gap to the difficult technical literature on the topic. It is accessible to graduate students in business and economics. In addition, multiple time series courses in other fields such as statistics and engineering may be based on it.

Mutual funds form the bedrock of retirement savings in the United States, and, considering their rapid growth, are sure to be more critical in the future. Because the size of fees paid by investors to mutual fund advisers can strongly affect the return on investment, these fees have become a contentious issue in Congress and the courts, with many arguing that investment advisers grow rich at the expense of investors.

This ground-breaking book not only conceptualizes a new economic model of the mutual fund industry, but also uses this model to test for price competition between investment advisers, evaluating the assertion that market forces fail to protect investors' returns from excessive fees. Highly experienced authors track the growth of the industry over the past twenty-five years and present arguments and evidence both for and against theories of adviser malfeasance. The authors review the regulatory history of mutual fund fees and summarize leading case decisions addressing excessive fees.

Revealing the extent to which the governance structure of mutual funds truly impacts fund performance, this book provides the best understanding of today's mutual fund industry and is a vital tool for investors, money managers, fund directors, securities lawyers, economists, and anyone concerned with the regulation of mutual funds.

Wer mAchte das nicht? Denen etwas hinterlassen, die man wirklich bedenken mAchte. Das geht jedoch nur mit einem Testament, denn ohne die schriftliche ErklArung des A"Letzten WillensA" gilt die gesetzliche Erbfolge, die oft nicht den eigenen WA1/4nschen entspricht: Hier erfahren Sie, was es mit der gesetzlichen Erbfolge und PflichtteilsansprA1/4chen auf sich hat. Der Autor hilft Ihnen beim Aufsetzen eines Testaments und erlAutert, was Sie darin alles regeln kAnnen. Es spricht auch die MAglichkeit an zu schenken, statt zu vererben, gibt legale Steuertipps und erklArt, wie ein Testament in unterschiedlichen Lebenssituationen formuliert sein muss. Zahlreiche Checklisten und Mustervorlagen runden den Band ab.

Christiane Strohm investigates the effects of the Sarbanes-Oxley-Act and the revised 8th EU-Directive on auditing. She shows that there is a difference in the communication and safeguarding effects of a regulation, depending on the precision of its wording and that safeguarding effects also depend on auditors' monetary incentives and on perceived costs of litigation.

This book provides an answer to the question, 'What does the finance and economics literature say about the determination and estimation of a project's cost of capital?'. Uniquely, it reviews both the theory of asset pricing in discrete time and a range of more applied topics which relate to project valuation, including the effects of corporate and personal taxes, the international dimension, estimation of the cost of equity in practice, and the cost of capital for regulated utilities. It seeks to explain models and arguments in a way which does justice to the reasoning, whilst minimising the prior knowledge of finance and maths expected of the reader. It acts as a bridge between a general undergraduate or MBA text in finance, accounting or economics, and the modern theoretical literature on the cost of capital.

Since 1981, over 100 governments around the world have raised over $1 trillion through the sale of SOEs to private investors. Privatization programs have transformed the role of the state in virtually all-major economies, and have massively increased the capitalization and liquidity of all non-U.S. stock markets. The focus of this book lies on where privatization stands today and what are the next frontiers, the why and how behind countries who privatize certain industries, whether privatization works as an economic tool and important insights relevant to financial institutions such as how to value privatized industries, how share offerings differ from private offerings, and how countries go about harnessing private capital. The book will also represent a key and unique source for information related to the details of asset sales privatization, a summary of statistics of privatized companies from 54 international stock exchanges, regulatory changes and sources for privatization information for investors, government officials, bankers and financial specialists. The volume will serve as an invaluable reference for professionals and as a core or supplementary text in privatization courses.

As the U.S. Population ages, retirement is becoming an increasingly important life stage. Pension and retirement plans are crucial to the financial well-being of older citizens and key determinants of their standard of living. Many varieties of pension plans are currently offered, and employers have an interest in these plans because a good pension plan can help an employer attract, retain, and motivate a competent workforce. In some cases, the employer's financial health can depend significantly on the financial health of its pension plan. When employers make decisions regarding pension and retirement plans, they are making decisions that have high stakes for both their employees and the employer itself. Poor decisions can lead to intense scrutiny, sometimes by the media or in the courtroom. Good pension decision making can provide a secure future for the employer and its employees.
Managing Pension and Retirement Plans: A Guide for Employers, Administrators and Other Fiduciaries covers the essential financial issues surrounding pension plans. It discusses investment policy and strategy, performance measurement, fiduciary responsibilities, and labor market issues, among other topics. Anyone responsible for any aspect of pension plan management will profit from reading this book.

Emerging market stock issuance relative to GDP rose in the late twentieth century to levels that roughly matched that of advanced, industrial markets. Nonetheless, the connection between owning shares of emerging market stock and the ability to influence the management of these firms remains fundamentally different from the analogous institutional connection that has evolved in industrial markets. The reasons for the differences in emerging markets are both historical and political in nature. That is, local equity markets have had the objective of providing for some degree of local ownership and control of large economic entities since the late nineteenth century. However, local markets have operated under different global political structures since that time, ranging from imperialism, to world wars, to sovereign developmental states, to neo-liberal states. Shares issued under these different structures have been reconfigured over time, resulting in a lack of convergence along either the Anglo-American or Continental models of corporate governance. The author uses a political science paradigm to explain the growth of emerging equity markets. She departs from conventional economic explanations and examines politics at the micro-level of large issues of emerging market stock. The second half of the book presents case studies dealing with emerging market countries in Latin America, Asia, Russia and Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The case studies connect the regional, state, and firm levels to detail the multiple ownership and control arrangements, and to dispel the notion that mere quantitative growth of these markets will lead to a convergence in financial institutional structures along the lines of the industrial core of the world economy.

Tax havens have traditionally been politically acceptable as long as they are rainy and cold places such as Delaware, the Netherlands, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. However, if you add a white sand beach and some palm trees, it becomes a different story. The tax haven becomes an offensive villain, not only guilty of unfair tax competition but of virtually every other thinkable evil, including money laundering, tax evasion, and all poverty on planet earth. The fact that the lion's share of international money laundering takes place in London and New York, not in the Caymans or the British Virgin Islands, is usually conveniently omitted in any debate on the subject. So if everyone from your accountant and his grandmother to the prime minister of the United Kingdom are relentlessly critical about corporate structuring under the palm trees, this is a valid reason to consider incorporating elsewhere. If you are looking for financial privacy and tax freedom, you can find this in the cold countries that like to call the warmer tax havens sunny places for shady people. The most notorious tax haven criticism comes from the most prominent offshore tax havens in the world, the United States and the United Kingdom. This book will teach you how to incorporate tax-free companies in those countries. From the author of the international bestseller The Land Without a Banking Law - How to Start a Bank with a Thousand Dollars.

In this second book of the series, topics discussed include the economic significance, current risk, and policy responses to deflation; crowd-funding and the exemption for small firms from Securities and Exchange Commission registration requirements; economic downturns and crime; auction-rate securities; and consumer fee increases in the usage of automated teller machines.

As the U.S. workforce has become increasingly diverse, many private- and public-sector entities recognise the importance of recruiting and retaining minorities and women for management-level positions to improve their business. The 2007-2009 financial crisis has renewed questions about commitment within the financial services industry (eg: banking and securities) to workforce diversity. The Dodd-Frank Act required that eight federal financial agencies and the Federal Reserve Banks implement provisions to support workforce and contractor diversity. This book reviews the trends and practices implemented since the beginning of the financial crisis and examines (1) workforce diversity in the financial services industry, the federal financial agencies, and Reserve Banks from 2007 through 2011 and (2) the efforts of the agencies and Reserve Banks to implement workforce diversity practices under the Dodd-Frank Act, including contracting.

The recent fiscal crisis and recession have accentuated debt collection issues, prompted federal regulatory and enforcement activities regarding the debt collection industry, and motivated assessments of the effectiveness of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the two main agencies charged with regulating and/or enforcing the FDCPA, have identified debt buying, the use of litigation as a collection strategy, and the impact of current technology on the debt collection industry as three major developments that did not exist when the FDCPA was enacted in 1977. They have conducted analyses of consumer complaints about FDCPA violations and studies and workshops to evaluate the debt-buying industry and the impact of technological developments such as social media, email, mobile phones, etc., on how debt collectors communicate with consumers and find information about consumer debts. At present, about 30 million Americans, nearly 10% of the population, are subject to debt collection for amounts averaging $1,500 per person, according to the CFPB. This book provides an overview and analysis of the Fair Debt Collection Practices and Act with a focus on current issues and legislative proposals.

Information technology decisions are usually made by IT experts who often lack the finance and accounting skills to fully understand the financial implications of this capital spending. This book is aimed at IT managers, addressing issues such as: how to budget and account for IT appropriately; how to build a financial case for IT investment; how to use investment appraisal techniques, as well as how to use numerous financial tricks of the trade.

This unique and popular text, now in a sixth edition, clearly and succinctly guides Accounting students and researchers in their understanding and conducting of research from conception to completion, across a wide range of research methods, including quantitative, qualitative and mixed-methods research. This latest edition provides new and extended coverage, including the role and impact of social media, big data analytics, data mining, and emerging and disruptive technologies, such as Blockchain. There is also a renewed focus on the role of ethics in Accounting research. This text remains essential reading for those completing a research methods course, project/dissertation or other form of individual study in Accounting. Malcolm Smith was Foundation Professor of Accounting at the University of South Australia.

Advances in the Valuation and Management of Mortgage-Backed Securities details the latest developments for valuing mortgage-backed securities and measuring and controlling the interest rate risk of these securities. Complete coverage includes: decomposition of mortgage spreads, MBS index replication strategies and market neutral strategies, Monte Carlo/OAS methodology, valuation of inverse floaters and ARMs, relative value analysis, and hedging mortgage instruments against level risk and yield curve risk.