This book gives a self-contained, intuitive overview of some of the most important topics of finance, such as investment risk, market pricing and market efficiency, arbitrage, hedging, and the pricing and application of financial derivatives. It provides a first-principles introduction to the relevant material and concepts, emphasising intuition. Financial terminology, and the understanding implicit therein, is carefully introduced. The books starts with finance in the most general terms, and gradually specialises to investment theory and then derivatives. This book is tailor-made for readers new to finance, such as graduate students entering or interested in finance, or financial practitioners moving to a more quantitative role.

This book examines financial vulnerability: a state in which a person or household cannot absorb any substantial spending or negative income shock without substantial financial and ultimately broader harm such as job loss, emotional harm, or mental illness. The focus of the book is on the experiences of low- income and modest income Canadian families - families which, by virtue of being in the lower income brackets, are particularly at risk of experiencing financial hardship. Looking at vulnerability from a conceptual and empirical lens, this book offers a framework to better understand the complex and interdependent ways in which financial vulnerability emerge and can be addressed. By locating its analysis of individual and household financial management in wider community, cultural, and economic contexts, this book seeks to offer holistic policy recommendations to reduce financial vulnerability, with implications that go beyond Canada and to other developed countries.

Originally published in 2006, this book examines the collapse of the Enron Corp. and other financial scandals that arose in the wake of the market downturn in 2000. Part 1 reviews the market book and bust that preceded Enron's collapse. It then describes the growth of Enron and the events that led to its sensational failure. Part 2 examines the role of the Securities and Exchange Commission's full disclosure system in corporate governance and the role of accountants in that system. Part 3 reviews the meltdown in the telecoms sector and the accounting scandals that emerged. Part 4 traces the remarkable market recovery that followed the financial scandals and the resumption of the growth of finance in America.

Since the 2007 2008 global financial crisis, there has been much debate about the role of financial regulation and the causes of financial instability in the industry. Where studies commonly question the value of a regulated rather than free market , this book focuses on the differentiation of 'good regulation' and 'bad regulation'. This book highlights the need for financial regulation to combat corruption, and the integral link that exists between corruption and financial instability. The author evaluates the benefits and shortcomings of specific types of regulation, drawing on recent examples to illustrate each argument. The book presents compelling arguments for the regulation of leverage, liquidity, payday loans and securitisation; and debates the negative aspects of the regulation of short selling, and high-frequency trading, and of Basel-style banking regulation. The author argues that there is no free-market solution to financial instability, and rejects the idea of 'too big to fail'.

This edited volume explores theoretical and empirical issues related to monetary economics and policy in the Islamic financial system. Derived from the Conference on Islamic Monetary Economics and Institutions: Theory and Practice 2017 held in Male, Maldives, the enclosed papers highlights several option for authorities and regulatory bodies regarding monetary policy and regulation, as well as discussing how Islamic monetary policy effects growth, financial stability and resilience to shocks in practice. The inter-linkage between Islamic monetary policy and other markets are also explored. The subject of Islamic economics has gained considerable attention in the last four decades with the emergence of Islamic financial institutions around the world. This phenomenon has motivated economists to develop a comprehensive theoretical framework of modern monetary economics for Islamic economic system. An important characteristic of the Islamic economic system is the abolition of interest from the financial system. Islamic monetary economics is distinguished from conventional monetary economics due to the absence of interest. Therefore, under the Islamic economic system, monetary policy has to depend on other tools. In the early theoretical literature on Islamic monetary economics, many have discussed the role of money in Islamic economics system, while the number of empirical studies on Islamic monetary economics is a relatively new phenomenon. According to Islamic scholars, there are three main goals of Islamic monetary policy: a) economic well-being with full employment and optimum rate of economic growth; b) socioeconomic justice and equitable distribution of income and wealth and c) stability in the value of money. Hence, the Islamic monetary policy has several socioeconomic and ethical implications. Featuring regional case studies, this book serves as a valuable resource for academics, scholars, practitioners and policy makers in the areas of Islamic economics and finance.

Mathematical techniques for trading and risk management.

"Managing Energy Risk" closes the gap between modern techniques from financial mathematics and the practical implementation for trading and risk management. It takes a multi-commodity approach that covers the mutual influences of the markets for fuels, emission certificates, and power. It includes many practical examples and covers methods from financial mathematics as well as economics and energy-related models.

This book sheds light on the emotional side of risk taking behaviour using an innovative cross-disciplinary approach, mixing financial competences with psychology and affective neuroscience. In doing so, it shows the implications for market participants and regulators in terms of transparency and communication between intermediaries and customers.

This open access book is the first attempt to elaborate the formalization phase of banking supervision in eight developed countries-USA, Japan, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, France, and UK. This innovative study in the field of banking supervision history identifies why national histories of banking supervision share similarities, but also remain different and are heavily path dependent. This book will be of great interest not only to financial/economic historians but also to general readers interested in banking supervision, i.e., students, bankers, supervisors, and international officials.

This book examines the crisis of EMU through the lenses of comparative political economy. It retraces the development of wage-setting systems in the core and peripheral EMU member states, and how these contributed to the increasing divergence between creditor and debtor states in the late 2000s. Starting with the construction of the Deutschmark bloc, through the Maastricht process of the 1990s, and into the first decade of EMU, this book analyzes how labour unions and wage determination systems adjusted in response to monetary integration and, in turn, influenced the shape that monetary union would eventually take. Before the introduction of the Euro, labour unions were disciplined by central banks and governments, after social conflict in the north of the continent and with the use of social pacts in the others. Since controlling inflation had become the main goal of macro-economic policy, national central banks acted as a backstop to keep militant unions and profligate governments under control. Public sector wages thus were subordinated to manufacturing wages, a set-up policed by export sector unions, aided by the central bank. With the introduction of the single currency, the European Central Bank replaced the national central banks and, as a result, their capacity to control labour unions disappeared. The strong links between wages in the public sector unions and wages in the manufacturing export sector weakened dramatically in many countries, wage inflation re-emerged, and the stage was set for the current account divergences at the basis of the crisis of EMU.

European Financial Reporting analyses the revolution that is currently taking place in the financial reporting of the major European companies, following the European Union's decision that from they must present their accounts according to the IASB's standards. The book covers both the theory of financial reporting and its practice at both national and international level. It covers the very latest developments in the EU and the IASB with a detailed analysis of the impact of the Enron scandal. MARKET 1: Academics, Researchers, Libraries and Post-graduate Students on Financial Reporting or International Accounting programmes at Universities and Business and Management Schools MARKET 2: Supplementary reading for Students on International Business or European Business programmes

This book presents the state-of-the-art applications of machine learning in the finance domain with a focus on financial product modeling, which aims to advance the model performance and minimize risk and uncertainty. It provides both practical and managerial implications of financial and managerial decision support systems which capture a broad range of financial data traits. It also serves as a guide for the implementation of risk-adjusted financial product pricing systems, while adding a significant supplement to the financial literacy of the investigated study. The book covers advanced machine learning techniques, such as Support Vector Machine, Neural Networks, Random Forest, K-Nearest Neighbors, Extreme Learning Machine, Deep Learning Approaches, and their application to finance datasets. It also leverages real-world financial instances to practice business product modeling and data analysis. Software code, such as MATLAB, Python and/or R including datasets within a broad range of financial domain are included for more rigorous practice. The book primarily aims at providing graduate students and researchers with a roadmap for financial data analysis. It is also intended for a broad audience, including academics, professional financial analysts, and policy-makers who are involved in forecasting, modeling, trading, risk management, economics, credit risk, and portfolio management.

Economists broadly define financial asset price bubbles as episodes in which prices rise with notable rapidity and depart from historically established asset valuation multiples and relationships. Financial economists have for decades attempted to study and interpret bubbles through the prisms of rational expectations, efficient markets, equilibrium, arbitrage, and capital asset pricing models, but they have not made much if any progress toward a consistent and reliable theory that explains how and why bubbles (and crashes) evolve and are defined, measured, and compared. This book develops a new and different approach that is based on the central notion that bubbles and crashes reflect urgent short-side rationing, which means that, as such extreme conditions unfold, considerations of quantities owned or not owned begin to displace considerations of price.

This book constitutes a selection of the best papers from the 15th International Conference on Business Excellence, Digital Economy and New Value Creation, ICBE 2021, held in Bucharest, Romania, in March 2021. This book is a collection of research findings and perspectives related to the digital economy and new value creation, led by the set of improvements and changes in the economic, societal and technological structures and processes towards the effort of reaching the sustainability goals.

This book focuses on traditional fields of business studies and economics and how digitalization has affected them. It provides an overview about the lessons learned from academic research and highlights implications for practitioners. Digitalization has not only changed the ways business administration and economics are taught, but also the substance at the core of the two disciplines. Chapters from expert contributors define and carefully evaluate the developments that have occurred over the last decades. The authors further provide an assessment of how industry branches have adapted and in which form regulators have engaged. Attention is given to the theoretical and empirical findings from recent scholarly literature. Furthermore, the authors provide some novel insights from their own research at the University of Bremen. This book appeals to business administration, economics, and entrepreneurship scholars and practitioners alike.

Building upon Feltham and Ohlson models, this book examines positive loss-earnings within the context of the dot.com bubble during the boom years of the late 1990s bull market. The strong demand for equity financing captured the imagination of investors from Europe and U.S. like never before. With a focus on U.S. Internet companies, the book explores both the birth and the death of the new economy, and how negative earnings and losses still garnered large investments and successful IPOs (Initial Public Offerings). As Internet based ventures and the digital economy keep attracting large amounts of equity financing, this book explains that there is something unique in the valuation and pricing of tech companies. The book was written for corporate financiers, capital market professionals, and academics to further their understanding of equity valuation and the effects of equity trading.

Companies of all sizes have been initiating international transactions--mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, strategic alliances, and private placements--in record numbers. Targeted due diligence is crucial to effectively research, value, and complete these complex deals. With an evolving climate of uncertainty and new, unpredictable threats to business, it is more essential than ever before.

"Due Diligence for Global Deal Making" is an invaluable guidebook for companies trying to capitalize on the opportunities in both developed and emerging cross-border markets. All too often global transactions fail to meet the parties' expectations, and the leading culprit is inadequate due diligence. Especially when the target partner lacks a financial performance track record and significant assets, expanding businesses must answer difficult questions, such as: Why (if at all) do this deal? What are the rules going in, and what happens if things go wrong? Where are the tax, legal, financial, and operational traps, and what are the opportunities? This book provides what's needed to avoid devastating mistakes and to master the steps that ensure success: Expert analysis, insights, and strategies from experienced practitioners and leading authorities in cross-border mattersIn-depth coverage of critical topics decision makers need to understand in order to succeed in cross-border transactions--from corporate planning to operational, financial, legal, tax, accounting, and people/organizational considerationsBest practices of corporate investors and professional advisers in conducting critical due diligence

Noted experts discuss critical topics corporate executives--and all those involved with their company's legal, operational, accounting, and tax matters--need to know to successfully complete complex global transactions today.

This volume contains three main themes. The first theme relates to financial developments in the MENA region, emphasizing the role of stock markets and portfolio flows, foreign direct investments and private and public savings in the growth and development experience of the region. We see echoed throughout the first few chapters the notion that financial liberalization has many benefits as well as risks not only for the countries involved, but for international investors as well. For the countries of this region, we see the promise of enhanced growth and development through more developed financial markets that can facilitate the important relationship between investors and savers. For the international investor, we see a region that is posed to offer returns that are strongly correlated to risk. In the developing economies of the MENA region commercial banks have played a prominent role in economic growth since capital markets are still underdeveloped and still lack the appropriate mechanisms to channel effectively and efficiently funds from surplus units to deficit units. The next theme of the volume relates to the role commercial banks have played in channelling funds from savings to investments, and their role in the financing for development experience of some MENA economies. Finally, and on a broader level, the conduct of monetary policy in some MENA countries is highlighted with some emphasis on exchange rate policies and the use of some exchange rate regimes and their impact on the economies of the region.

This book is a major work that focuses exclusively on ship finance and includes contributions on the increasingly complex field of ship finance, which has over the last two decades become a key aspect in the world of shipping and ship owning. The book offers an enlightening mix of theoretical analysis and well-founded practical insights into the daily markets. Given that ship finance continues to develop dynamically around the world, the book covers subjects ranging from the German KG market to Islamic Finance, from loans to legal aspects and from asset pricing to risk management.

It is becoming more and more difficult to find well-managed companies in today's business world. The recent financial blowups demonstrate the overriding lack of respect for shareholders. For their own benefit, management risks shareholder assets without restraint. If the risky bets pay off, bonuses are awarded. If the risky bets fail, it is no loss to management and they may just get a hefty severance package in the process. However, from back in the 1960s, one man, Warren Buffett, has dedicated himself completely to his shareholders. In managing Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett took a company worth $40 per share and built it into an empire worth close to $100,000 per share in today's market. In spite of this incredible success, very few of Buffett's actions are replicated in modern business practices. Building the Next Berkshire Hathaway outlines the business principles that helped establish this company as one of the best run in U.S. history. Whether you are an investor who wants to be able to recognize the potential for business success or an executive ready to establish policies that benefit your shareholders, this book is an indispensable resource. There are a number of books that will tell you how to invest like Warren Buffett-this book takes it a step further to show how his success as a CEO was tied to his treatment of shareholders.

This text introduces upper division undergraduate/beginning graduate students in mathematics, finance, or economics, to the core topics of a beginning course in finance/financial engineering. Particular emphasis is placed on exploiting the power of the Monte Carlo method to illustrate and explore financial principles. Monte Carlo is the uniquely appropriate tool for modeling the random factors that drive financial markets and simulating their implications. The Monte Carlo method is introduced early and it is used in conjunction with the geometric Brownian motion model (GBM) to illustrate and analyze the topics covered in the remainder of the text. Placing focus on Monte Carlo methods allows for students to travel a short road from theory to practical applications. Coverage includes investment science, mean-variance portfolio theory, option pricing principles, exotic options, option trading strategies, jump diffusion and exponential Levy alternative models, and the Kelly criterion for maximizing investment growth. Novel features: inclusion of both portfolio theory and contingent claim analysis in a single text pricing methodology for exotic options expectation analysis of option trading strategies pricing models that transcend the Black-Scholes framework optimizing investment allocations concepts thoroughly explored through numerous simulation exercises numerous worked examples and illustrations The mathematical background required is a year and one-half course in calculus, matrix algebra covering solutions of linear systems, and a knowledge of probability including expectation, densities and the normal distribution. A refresher for these topics is presented in the Appendices. The programming background needed is how to code branching, loops and subroutines in some mathematical or general purpose language. The mathematical background required is a year and one-half course in calculus, matrix algebra covering solutions of linear systems, and a knowledge of probability including expectation, densities and the normal distribution. A refresher for these topics is presented in the Appendices. The programming background needed is how to code branching, loops and subroutines in some mathematical or general purpose language. Also by the author: (with F. Mendivil) Explorations in Monte Carlo, (c)2009, ISBN: 978-0-387-87836-2; (with J. Herod) Mathematical Biology: An Introduction with Maple and Matlab, Second edition, (c)2009, ISBN: 978-0-387-70983-3.

This book presents the effects of integrating information and communication technologies (ICT) and economic processes in macroeconomic dynamics, finance, marketing, industrial policies, and in government economic strategy. The text explores modeling and applications in these fields and also describes, in a clear and accessible manner, the theories that guide the integration among information technology (IT), telecommunications, and the economy, while presenting examples of their applications. Current trends such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big data technologies used in economics are also included. This volume is suitable for researchers, practitioners, and students working in economic theory and the computational social sciences.

The spread of the Internet into all areas of business activities has put a particular focus on business models. The digitalization of business processes is the driver of changes in company strategies and management practices alike. This textbook provides a structured and conceptual approach, allowing students and other readers to understand the commonalities and specifics of the respective business models. The book begins with an overview of the business model concept in general by presenting the development of business models, analyzing definitions of business models and discussing the significance of the success of business model management. In turn, Chapter 2 offers insights into and explanations of the business model concept and provides the underlying approaches and ideas behind business models. Building on these foundations, Chapter 3 outlines the fundamental aspects of the digital economy. In the following chapters the book examines various core models in the business to consumer (B2C) context. The chapters follow a 4-C approach that divides the digital B2C businesses into models focusing on content, commerce, context and connection. Each chapter describes one of the four models and provides information on the respective business model types, the value chain, core assets and competencies as well as a case study. Based on the example of Google, Chapter 8 merges these approaches and describes the development of a hybrid digital business model. Chapter 9 is dedicated to business-to-business (B2B) digital business models. It shows how companies focus on business solutions such as online provision of sourcing, sales, supportive collaboration and broker services. Chapter 10 shares insight into the innovation aspect of digital business models, presenting structures and processes of digital business model innovation. The book is rounded out by a comprehensive case study on Google/Alphabet that combines all aspects of digital business models. Conceived as a textbook for students in advanced undergraduate courses, the book will also be useful for professionals and practitioners involved in business model innovation, and applied researchers.