Incorporating currencies, payment methods, and protocols that computers use to talk to each other, digital currencies are poised to grow in use and importance. The Handbook of Digital Currency gives readers a way to learn about subjects outside their specialties and provides authoritative background and tools for those whose primary source of information is journal articles. Taking a cross-country perspective, its comprehensive view of the field includes history, technicality, IT, finance, economics, legal, tax and regulatory environment. For those who come from different backgrounds with different questions in mind, The Handbook of Digital Currency is an essential starting point.

The COVID-19 global health pandemic, which started in late December 2019, forced many countries to adopt unusual measures such as social distancing and strict lockdowns. It changed many of our certainties and practices, including the foundations of the market-led version of capitalism, by bringing social and health considerations back to the forefront of firms' considerations, investors' strategies and governments' priorities. Under the effects of this unprecedented crisis, all sectors of finance and real economy have been seriously affected.Health uncertainties and their increasing consequences for human life and activities require stronger and faster actions to shape pathways towards sustainability and better resilience. The COVID-19 health crisis is a visible part of a greater iceberg: the World Health Organization has tracked, over recent years, a large number of epidemic events around the world, suggesting that many other similar diseases could appear and evolve in the future from epidemic to pandemic in a globalized world.Financial Transformations Beyond the COVID-19 Health Crisis was specifically designed to provide the readers with new results, recent findings and future outlook on the impacts of COVID-19 on financial markets, firm behaviors, and finance and investment strategies. It favors multidimensional perspectives and brings together conceptual, empirical and policy-oriented chapters, using quantitative and qualitative methods alike. This is a timely and comprehensive collection of theoretical, empirical and policy contributions from renowned scholars around the world, and provides the thoughts and insights required to rethink the financial sector in the event of new shocks of the same nature.

This self-contained module for independent study covers the subjects most often needed by non-mathematics graduates, such as fundamental calculus, linear algebra, probability, and basic numerical methods. The easily-understandable text of Introduction to Actuarial and Mathematical Methods features examples, motivations, and lots of practice from a large number of end-of-chapter questions. For readers with diverse backgrounds entering programs of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, the Society of Actuaries, and the CFA Institute, Introduction to Actuarial and Mathematical Methods can provide a consistency of mathematical knowledge from the outset.

In The Financial Crisis Reconsidered, Aronoff challenges the conventional view that reckless credit produced the US housing boom and the financial crisis, explaining how the large current account deficit, and its mercantilist origin, was a more fundamental cause. He also demonstrates that the decision to provide relief for bank creditors rather than underwater homeowners was responsible for the prolonged recession that followed the crisis. Aronoff proposes a novel theory to account for the ultimate origins of secular stagnation and economic volatility. He shows how accumulation, which occurs when a person or country earns more than it ever plans to spend, generates both an excess of saving and a deficiency in demand. While savings provide the funds to promote booms, under-consumption ensures that these booms will turn bust and that the economy will fall short of its potential growth rate. Aronoff argues that mercantilists and top income earners engage in accumulation, and that the influence of both types has grown in recent decades. Combining economic theory and historical narrative, this book offers a new perspective of the housing boom and the financial crisis, concluding with innovative policy proposals to reduce accumulation without compromising the benefits of a market economy.

The Funding Is Out There! Access the Cash You Need to Impact Your Business provides more than thirty in-depth yet succinct case study examples of what actual business owners have done to raise capital to grow their businesses-covering not just what is available but the "how to" to obtain it, what works best, and why for a particular business type. Including everything from pursuing business-friendly community banks and forming strategic alliances to tapping supplier financing and using crowd funding (both donation and equity-based), it shows business owners how to raise the capital they need to grow their businesses. Most small and medium businesses are unaware of the variety of financing sources that exist for their business types or they are unprepared to meet the requirements from a relationship and financial packaging perspective. The Funding Is Out There! shows business owners how to do just that. Owners of mom-and-pop businesses, small businesses, and growing businesses with millions in revenues will tap: * Information that increases their odds of obtaining the financing they need to grow their businesses * Step-by-step options based on their business type * Options for each stage of growth * Advice that enables them to optimize their banking relationships The Funding Is Out There! shows business owners how to get the capital they need to flourish in today's competitive operating environments. Learn how to lay the financial framework to create a viable, sustainable business to sell or pass on!

This book concentrates on one of the most important directions for research on banking and finance for the next decade: the problem of information and risk management. Recent theoretical and empirical contributions consider asymmetric information between investors and financiers as a major determinant of financial risk. In this framwork, financial and banking innovation may be regarded as policy and individual agents' response to the problem of asymmetric information and risk management and also as a self-generated innovation process posing new challenges to policymakers in terms of informational efficiency and risk control.

This book collects important contributions in behavioral economics and related topics, mainly by Japanese researchers, to provide new perspectives for the future development of economics and behavioral economics. The volume focuses especially on economic studies that examine interactions of multiple agents and/or market phenomena by using behavioral economics models. Reflecting the diverse fields of the editors, the book captures broad influences of behavioral economics on various topics in economics. Those subjects include parental altruism, economic growth and development, the relative and permanent income hypotheses, wealth distribution, asset price bubbles, auctions, search, contracts, personnel management and market efficiency and anomalies in financial markets. The chapter authors have added newly written addenda to the original articles in which they address their own subsequent works, supplementary analyses, detailed information on the underlying data and/or recent literature surveys. This will help readers to further understand recent developments in behavioral economics and related research.

Financial services technology and its effect on the field of finance and banking has been of major importance within the last few years. The spread of these so-called disruptive technologies, including Blockchain, has radically changed financial markets and transformed the operation of the industry as a whole. This is the first multidisciplinary handbook of FinTech and Blockchain covering finance, economics, and legal aspects globally. With comprehensive coverage of the current landscape of financial technology alongside a forward-looking approach, the chapters are devoted to the spread of structured finance, ICT, distributed ledger technology (DLT), cybersecurity, data protection, artificial intelligence, and cryptocurrencies. Given an unprecedented 2020, the contributions also address the consequences of the current emergency, and the pandemic stroke, which is revolutionizing social and economic paradigms and heavily affecting Fintech, Blockchain, and the banking sector as well, and would be of particular interest to finance academics and researchers alongside banking and financial services professionals.

Critics of capitalist finance tend to focus on its speculative character. Our financial markets, they lament, encourage irresponsible bets on the future that reflect no real underlying value. Why is it, then, that opportunities for speculative investment continue to proliferate in the wake of major economic crises? To make sense of this, Capital and Time advances an understanding of economy as a process whereby patterns of order emerge out of the interaction of speculative investments. Progressive critics have assumed that the state occupies a neutral, external position from which it can step in to constrain speculative behaviors. On the contrary, Martijn Konings argues, the state has always been deeply implicated in the speculative dynamics of economic life. Through these insights, he offers a new interpretation of both the economic problems that emerged during the 1970s and the way that neoliberalism responded to them. Neoliberalism's strength derives from its intuition that there is no position that transcends the secular logic of risk, and from its insistence that individuals actively engage that logic. Not only is the critique of speculation misleading as a general approach; it is also incapable of recognizing how American capitalism has come to embrace speculation and has thus been able to generate new kinds of order and governance.

How can financial flows help the EU fulfil its mandate to promote economic, social and territorial cohesion, and solidarity among Member States enshrined in the EU Treaty? Dissecting the complexity of cohesion, this book examines the factors that matter most for the functioning of the Economic and Monetary Union and the convergence of Central, Eastern and Southeastern European (CESEE) countries. This insightful and timely book brings together central bankers, policy makers and academics to discuss how to best advance and fund the catching-up process of the euro area and CESEE countries. Focusing on a modern understanding of industrial policy - which fosters skills, innovation and infrastructure - contributors highlight how the EU's regional policy can better meet persistent investments needs. Critical and comprehensive, this book is crucial reading for researchers at all levels focusing on policy reform in emerging European economies. Central bankers and policy experts in public or international organizations will also benefit from this book's contemporary perspective on monetary and industrial policies.

The book is extremely current and includes a discussion of the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on equality. Uniquely combines expertise and research from finance, psychology and gender to demonstrate how the financial services industry arrived at its current state. Provides practical solutions for how institutions can implement more gender equal strategies.

Recent years have witnessed massive development in both the venture capital market and in academic research relating to this market. The aims of this timely collection are to identify leading contributions to this developing area from the past two decades; to reflect the growing multi-disciplinarity of research on venture capital; and to highlight the need to recognize international differences in venture capital markets. The editors have written an authoritative overview, signaling where venture capital research has come and where it is going. This is a vital collection of writings for those wanting to become familiar with venture capital research.

Since the recent international crises, the role and significance of international financial institutions (IFI) have been challenged. Some have argued that global financial institutions are inadequate and inefficient in performing their missions, and may be replaced by modern institutions with inclusive governance and a goal-focused approach. International Financial Institutions and Their Challenges analyzes the claimed purposes of IFIs and their failures, and proposes solutions for the future. This comprehensive account is the first book of its kind to give readers an exhaustive overview of key IFI's from the International Monetary Fund to the Islamic Development Bank. By encouraging readers to think outside the box, Lessambo enhances the current and future debates on IFIs. The book brings readers to the real challenges of international finance, and appeals to scholars in economics, finance, international studies, government studies, law, and political science, as well as professionals in finance, development experts, and employees at NGOs.

In a world of increasing financial uncertainty and growing unemployment, the macroeconomic contribution of SMEs is more important than ever. Development of a vibrant, sustainable small firm sector is dependent on sufficient resourcing of SMEs, particularly adequate capitalisation. This book provides a timely examination of SME financing and determinants of capital structure. A special feature of this book is the novel methodological approach adopted, providing an innovative perspective on SME financing. Analysis of stated financing preferences and objectives of SME owners is combined with results of statistical analysis of firm characteristics in exploring holistic explanations for observed capital structures. The uniqueness of this approach is in the contribution of data on financing preferences to supplement and contextualise results of bivariate and multivariate statistical tests. This methodology extends the SME literature, and is of interest to academics, researchers, practitioners and policy makers.

This book explores the various aspects of Waqf management in IsDB member countries/jurisdictions as well as in non-Muslim majority countries. Topics covered include Waqf regulation, its modernization and relationship to Maqasid Al-Shari'ah; performance of Waqf activities; time and activity-wise distribution of Waqf resource management; the antecedents and consequences of Waqf assets (both physical and cash); the strategies and models to promote Waqf-related activities for greater socio-economic development; good governance practices through the formulation of informed policies for Waqf projects; the confluence of Waqf, zakah, charity, and Islamic microfinance impacting socio-economic development and so on. Comprising different issues and perspectives adopted by various authors/researchers, the book is specifically designed to meet the needs of academics and industry practitioners in the field of Islamic finance to provide general and Shari'ah guidelines on the emerging issues within the subject.

PRAISE FOR THE LONG GOOD BUY "Oppenheimer offers brilliant insights, sage advice and entertaining anecdotes. Anyone wishing to understand how financial markets behave - and misbehave - should read this book now." Stephen D. King, economist and author of Grave New World: The End of Globalisation, the Return of History "Peter has always been one of the masters of dissecting financial markets performance into an understandable narrative, and in this book, he pulls together much of his great thinking and style from his career, and it should be useful for anyone trying to understand what drives markets, especially equities." Lord Jim O'Neill, Chair, Chatham House "A deeply insightful analysis of market cycles and their drivers that really does add to our practical understanding of what moves markets and long-term investment returns." Keith Skeoch, CEO, Standard Life Aberdeen "This book eloquently blends the author's vast experience with behavioural finance insights to document and understand financial booms and busts. The book should be basic reading for any student of finance." Elias Papaioannou, Professor of Economics, London Business School "This is an excellent book, capturing the insights of a leading market practitioner within the structured analytical framework he has developed over many years. It offers a lively and unique perspective on how markets work and where they are headed." Huw Pill, Senior Lecturer, Harvard Business School "The Long Good Buy is an excellent introduction to understanding the cycles, trends and crises in financial markets over the past 100 years. Its purpose is to help investors assess risk and the probabilities of different outcomes. It is lucidly written in a simple logical way, requires no mathematical expertise and draws on an amazing collection of historical data and research. For me it is the best and most comprehensive introduction to the subject that exists." Lord Brian Griffiths, Chairman - Centre for Enterprise, Markets and Ethics, Oxford

This collective book offers a panorama of the history of tax evasion, tax avoidance and tax havens from the nineteenth century to the present day, based on the latest research in contemporary history. It aims to show that this phenomenon is at the heart of global capitalism, partly as a response of the ruling classes to the rise of progressive taxation, but for other reasons too: notably the development of a powerful tax evasion and avoidance industry in different countries. The book argues that tax competition between states has stimulated the development of tax havens. It discusses the notion of the ‘tax haven’ and proposes a more rigorous concept - that of the ‘tax predator’. Finally, the book sheds light on the socio-political conflicts that have developed around tax evasion and the way in which states have fought against or tolerated the phenomenon.

The period of past four decades has been characterized as one of neo-liberalism, financialization, globalization, privatization and de-regulation. Inequality has risen in industrialised countries, labour's share in national income has been in decline and economic growth slowed. The evidence of the damage to the environment from human economic activity, and the dramatic consequences of failure to address climate change have become more apparent and urgent. The global financial crises shocked the complacency of the neo-liberal era, though a decade later it may be doubted how much has changed. The central purpose of this volume is to investigate a range of economic and social policies, which move in the direction of constructing a post-neoliberal world. These range over alternative forms of ownership (public, co-operative), policies to address and reverse economic and social inequalities, responses to the forces of globalization, re-constituting the financial system and its roles, and the nature of employment.

This book charts the contributions made to the development of the late medieval English economy by enterprise, money, and credit in a period which saw its major export trade in wool, which earned most of its money-supply, suffer from prolonged periods of warfare, high taxation, adverse weather, and mortality of sheep. Consequently, the economy suffered from severe shortages of coin, as well as from internal political conflicts, before the plague of 1348-9 halved the population. The book examines from the Statute Merchant certificates of debt, the extent to which credit, which normally reflects economic activity, was affected by these events, and the extent to which London, and the leading counties were affected differently by them. The analysis covers the entire kingdom, decade by decade, and thereby contributes to the controversy whether over-population or shortage of coin most inhibited its development.

Since the 2008 financial crisis, beneficiary organizations-like pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, endowments, and foundations-have been seeking ways to mitigate the risk of their investments and make better financial decisions. For them, Reframing Finance offers a path forward. This book argues that institutional investors would better serve their long-term goals by putting money into large-scale, future-facing projects such as infrastructure, green energy, innovation in agriculture, and real estate development. At the same time, redirecting long-term investments would close significant financial gaps that government cannot. Drawing on key contributions in economic sociology, social network theory, and economics, the book conceptualizes a collaborative model of investment that is already becoming increasingly common: Large investors contribute more directly to private market assets, while financial intermediaries seek to foster co-investment partnerships, better aligning incentives for all. A combination of rich case studies and rigorous theory enables asset owners to move toward more efficient, private-market investing, while also laying groundwork for research at the frontier of finance.

This is a new edition of the best-selling economics book that won't put you to sleep. In our challenging economic climate, this perennial favourite of students and general readers includes commentary on hot topics such as automation, trade and income inequality. Ten years after the financial crisis, Naked Economics examines how policymakers managed the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

This book presents the most current trends in the field of finance and accounting from an international perspective. Featuring contributions presented at the 17th Annual Conference on Finance and Accounting at the University of Economics in Prague, this title provides a mix of research methods used to uncover the hidden consequences of accounting convergence in the private (IFRS) and public sectors (IPSAS). Topics covered include international taxation (from both the micro- and macroeconomic level), international investment, monetary economics, risk management, management accounting, auditing, investment capital, corporate finance and banking, among others. The global business environment shapes the international financial flows of finance and the demand for international harmonization of accounting. As such, the field of global finance and accounting has encountered some new challenges. For example, policy-makers and regulators are forced to restructure their tools to tackle with new features of trading at global capital markets and international investment. This book complements this global view of development with country-specific studies, focusing on emerging and transitioning economies, which are affected indirectly and in unforeseen ways. The combination of global perspective and local specifics makes this volume attractive and useful to academics, researchers, regulators and policy-makers in the field of finance and accounting.

In modern financial practice, asset prices are modelled by means of stochastic processes, and continuous-time stochastic calculus thus plays a central role in financial modelling. This approach has its roots in the foundational work of the Nobel laureates Black, Scholes and Merton. Asset prices are further assumed to be rationalizable, that is, determined by equality of demand and supply on some market. This approach has its roots in the foundational work on General Equilibrium of the Nobel laureates Arrow and Debreu and in the work of McKenzie. This book has four parts. The first brings together a number of results from discrete-time models. The second develops stochastic continuous-time models for the valuation of financial assets (the Black-Scholes formula and its extensions), for optimal portfolio and consumption choice, and for obtaining the yield curve and pricing interest rate products. The third part recalls some concepts and results of general equilibrium theory, and applies this in financial markets. The last part is more advanced and tackles market incompleteness and the valuation of exotic options in a complete market.