An in-depth guide to understanding probability distributions and financial modeling for the purposes of investment management

In "Financial Models with Levy Processes and Volatility Clustering," the expert author team provides a framework to model the behavior of stock returns in both a univariate and a multivariate setting, providing you with practical applications to option pricing and portfolio management. They also explain the reasons for working with non-normal distribution in financial modeling and the best methodologies for employing it.

The book's framework includes the basics of probability distributions and explains the alpha-stable distribution and the tempered stable distribution. The authors also explore discrete time option pricing models, beginning with the classical normal model with volatility clustering to more recent models that consider both volatility clustering and heavy tails.Reviews the basics of probability distributionsAnalyzes a continuous time option pricing model (the so-called exponential Levy model)Defines a discrete time model with volatility clustering and how to price options using Monte Carlo methodsStudies two multivariate settings that are suitable to explain joint extreme events

"Financial Models with Levy Processes and Volatility Clustering" is a thorough guide to classical probability distribution methods and brand new methodologies for financial modeling.

Over the last decade, dynamical systems theory and related nonlinear methods have had a major impact on the analysis of time series data from complex systems. Recent developments in mathematical methods of state-space reconstruction, time-delay embedding, and surrogate data analysis, coupled with readily accessible and powerful computational facilities used in gathering and processing massive quantities of high-frequency data, have provided theorists and practitioners unparalleled opportunities for exploratory data analysis, modelling, forecasting, and control.
Until now, research exploring the application of nonlinear dynamics and associated algorithms to the study of economies and markets as complex systems is sparse and fragmentary at best. Modelling and Forecasting Financial Data brings together a coherent and accessible set of chapters on recent research results on this topic. To make such methods readily useful in practice, the contributors to this volume have agreed to make available to readers upon request all computer programs used to implement the methods discussed in their respective chapters.
Modelling and Forecasting Financial Data is a valuable resource for researchers and graduate students studying complex systems in finance, biology, and physics, as well as those applying such methods to nonlinear time series analysis and signal processing.

Stochastic Finance provides an introduction to mathematical finance that is unparalleled in its accessibility. Through classroom testing, the authors have identified common pain points for students, and their approach takes great care to help the reader to overcome these difficulties and to foster understanding where comparable texts often do not. Written for advanced undergraduate students, and making use of numerous detailed examples to illustrate key concepts, this text provides all the mathematical foundations necessary to model transactions in the world of finance. A first course in probability is the only necessary background. The book begins with the discrete binomial model and the finite market model, followed by the continuous Black-Scholes model. It studies the pricing of European options by combining financial concepts such as arbitrage and self-financing trading strategies with probabilistic tools such as sigma algebras, martingales and stochastic integration. All these concepts are introduced in a relaxed and user-friendly fashion.

Nonprofits often struggle financially, overwhelmed by the need to muster a complex combination of income streams that range from grants and government funding to gifts-in-kind and volunteer labor. Financing Nonprofits draws upon a growing body of scholarship in economics and organizational theory to offer a conceptual framework for understanding this diverse mix of financing sources. By applying theory, readers can understand when a nonprofit organization should pursue particular sources of income and how it should manage its portfolio of income from different sources. Organized under the auspices of the National Center on Nonprofit Enterprise, Financing Nonprofits argues that those who would manage nonprofit organizations must first develop a conceptual framework through which they can understand the complicated and fast-paced landscape surrounding nonprofit decision-making. It offers a piece by piece analysis of the many potential components of nonprofit operating income, including a detailed study on how to accumulate the capital needed for major infrastructure projects or endowments and an examination of how to maintain a healthy investment profile once sufficient capital exists. By melding theory with practice, Young and the other contributors to Financing Nonprofits have created a volume that will serve as a practical guide to financing strategies for executive directors, CFOs, and board members of nonprofit organizations in a wide variety of fields; as a text for graduate students in nonprofit finance; and as a source of ideas for researchers to continue to probe and illuminate the many subtle issues associated with finding the right mix of resources to support the essential work of nonprofit organizations in our society.

Many of the assumptions that underpin mainstream macroeconomic models have been challenged as a result of the traumatic events of the recent financial crisis. Thus, until recently, it was widely agreed that although the stock of money had a role to play, in practice it could be ignored as long as we used short-term nominal interest rates as the instrument of policy because money and other credit markets would clear at the given policy rate. However, very early on in the financial crisis interest rates effectively hit zero percent and so central banks had to resort to a wholly new set of largely untested instruments to restore order, including quantitative easing and the purchase of toxic financial assets. This book brings together contributions from economists working in academia, financial markets and central banks to assess the effectiveness of these policy instruments and explore what lessons have so far been learned.

This book explores China's private lending market from historical, economic, legal, and regulatory perspectives. Private lending refers to moneylending agreements between business borrowers and their debt investors without the involvement of banks. In China, it remains difficult for private entrepreneurs to obtain sufficient loans from state-owned banks. Thus, private lending has been a vital alternative financing channel for over 80 million businesses which are reliant on private funds as their major source of operating capital. The market volume of private financing stands at 5 trillion yuan ($783bn), making it one of the largest shadow banking systems in the world. Despite the wide popularity and systemic importance of private lending activities, they have remained outside of the official regulatory framework, leading to extra financial risks. In 2011, China's private lending sector encountered a severe financial crisis, as thousands of business borrowers failed to repay debts and fell into bankruptcy. Lots of bosses who found it impossible to liquidate debts ran away to hide from creditors. The financial turmoil has caused substantial monetary losses for investors across the country, which triggered social unrest and undermined the financial stability. This book is a timely work intended to demystify China's private lending market by investigating its historical development, operating mechanism, and special characteristics. It evaluates the causes and effects of the latest financial crisis by considering a number of real cases relating to helpless investors and runaway bosses. It conducts an in-depth doctrinal analysis of Chinese laws and regulations regarding private lending transactions. It also examines China's ongoing financial reform to bring underground lending activities under official supervision. Finally, the book points out future development paths for the private lending market. It offers suggestions for global policymakers devising an effective regulatory framework for shadow banking. It appeals to researchers, lecturers, and students in several fields, including law, business, finance, political economy, public policy, and China study.

This text takes copulas and applies the methodology to mathematical finance. The authors explain copulas by describing their application to major topics such as asset pricing, risk management and credit risk analysis. They take financial problems such as the pricing of multi-variate derivatives and exotic contracts and risk management issues such as allocating capital among different desk and business lines. The intention is that the reader will be able to devise their own applications and answers to such problems by following the strategies illustrated throughout the book.

Substantially revised and updated, this fourth edition of The UK financial system presents a comprehensive explanation of the workings of the institutions and markets making up the UK financial system. It also presents some key theoretical developments such as asymmetric information, the efficient markets hypothesis, behavioral economics and the term structure of interest rates, providing an analytical framework to aid understanding of the institutional structure. Recent changes covered include; the new framework for prudential regulation of the financial system with the new single regulator, the Financial Services Authority, the new framework for the operation of UK monetary policy and a comparison with the operations of the European Central Bank, the Cruickshank review of Banking Competition and the Myners review of institutional investment, global stock markets and the 'technology bubble' of the late 1990s, new developments in derivative markets and Basel II - the proposed capital adequacy accord. Several case studies are provided throughout the book examining the failure of various financial firms and the lessons that can be learned from them, including Equitable Life. Barings

Are people ready to take pivotal financial decisions like choosing a mortgage, saving for retirement, or investing their savings? How does the degree of knowledge about financial products and services affect the quality of their choices? Can financial fraud be prevented by increasing consumer financial knowledge? Financial Literacy in Europe addresses these important questions and more. In the first part, the author investigates the concept of financial literacy by analyzing its components and comparing different definitions from previous studies. This then forms a comprehensive measure of financial literacy to be applied in empirical studies that analyze the role of financial literacy in explaining consumers' financial behaviors. In the second part of the study, the author uses brand new data collected by the Consumer Finance Research Center (CFRC) from several European countries (the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, and Spain) to assess financial literacy in Europe and highlight similarities and differences across countries. Filling an important gap in previous research, the author develops a rigorous approach in the measurement of financial literacy in order to examine European financial literacy issues in great detail. This book, therefore, is a useful resource for assessing the effectiveness of single financial education programs or planning national strategies on financial education. It can also support policy makers in developing financial regulation and consumer protection strategies, considering the consumer perspective and their ability to deal with financial markets and institutions.

Nonprofits often struggle financially, overwhelmed by the need to muster a complex combination of income streams that range from grants and government funding to gifts-in-kind and volunteer labor. Financing Nonprofits draws upon a growing body of scholarship in economics and organizational theory to offer a conceptual framework for understanding this diverse mix of financing sources. By applying theory, readers can understand when a nonprofit organization should pursue particular sources of income and how it should manage its portfolio of income from different sources. Organized under the auspices of the National Center on Nonprofit Enterprise, Financing Nonprofits argues that those who would manage nonprofit organizations must first develop a conceptual framework through which they can understand the complicated and fast-paced landscape surrounding nonprofit decision-making. It offers a piece by piece analysis of the many potential components of nonprofit operating income, including a detailed study on how to accumulate the capital needed for major infrastructure projects or endowments and an examination of how to maintain a healthy investment profile once sufficient capital exists. By melding theory with practice, Young and the other contributors to Financing Nonprofits have created a volume that will serve as a practical guide to financing strategies for executive directors, CFOs, and board members of nonprofit organizations in a wide variety of fields; as a text for graduate students in nonprofit finance; and as a source of ideas for researchers to continue to probe and illuminate the many subtle issues associated with finding the right mix of resources to support the essential work of nonprofit organizations in our society.

The aim of this book is to bring academic work on contemporary issues in financial institutions and markets. The general theme is designed to allow for a wide range of topics covering the diverse nature of academic research in banking and finance. As a consequence the contributions cover a wide range of issues across a broad spectrum, including: bank business models, bank competition and stability, credit card pricing and risk; bank supervision; and international investments. This book was originally published as a special issue of The European Journal of Finance.

FEATURED IN THE NEW YORKER: The Faces of Americans Living in Debt Finalist for the Dorothea Lange/Paul Taylor Prize in Documentary. Featured on Politico, in the Washington Post, the Daily Mail, and the Huffington Post, USA Today, Business Insider, Refinery29, and Fast Company. Based on the popular online photo series and now published in print for the first time, The Debt Project collects 99 portraits of debt across the United States, featuring people of all different backgrounds and stories, to recontextualize an often stigmatized experience. In 2013, Brittany Powell made the difficult decision to file for bankruptcy for her photography business. In the years following the 2008 economic collapse, she found herself in a significant amount of debt, a position many Americans across the country still share, a common yet isolating and private experience often steeped in shame. Her personal experience, bolstered by the We Are the 99% slogan that came out of the Occupy movement, brought her to start The Debt Project, an exploration of the role debt and finance plays in our personal identity and social structure. This book presents an intimate look into 99 different lives: each shares an arrestingly honest portrait in the person’s home, surrounded by all their belongings, accompanied by a handwritten note of the amount of debt that person is in and the story behind the numbers. The Debt Project, with a foreword by writer and filmmaker Astra Taylor plus resources at the back of the book to support people in debt, examines the social and personal hold financial debt has on us and invites others into a private world, while at the same empowering people to share their stories and overcome the shame they may feel.

The second Europe, Middle East and Africa edition of this text combines the 40-year heritage of Brigham's expertise in international financial management with Fox's professional experience in the field. Financial Management: Theory and Practice equips students with a solid understanding of essential theoretical concepts as well as practical tools to assess and implement effective financial decisions. The unifying theme is corporate valuation and its relevance to financial decisions--ensuring students comprehend the details and the big picture. Chapters proceed from fundamentals to strategic finance, linking recent events to the role of finance in business and to your personal lives.

Throughout the 1990s, numerous financial crises rocked the world financial sector. The Asian bubble burst, for example; Argentina and Brazil suffered currency crises; and the post-Soviet economy bottomed out in Russia. In Financial Crises, a distinguished group of economists and policy analysts examine and draw lessons from attempts to recover from past crises. They also consider some potential hazards facing the world economy in the 21st century and discuss ways to avoid them and minimize the severity of any future downturn. This important new volume emerges from the seventh annual conference on emerging markets finance, cosponsored and organized by the World Bank and the Brookings Institution. In the book, noted experts address the following questions: �bullet points� How effective were post-crisis policies in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and East and Central Asia? Where do international financial markets stand ten years after the worldwide debt crisis? How can the provision of financial services resume vigorously, yet safely? What are the viable policy options for reducing systemic financial vulnerability? What will the next emerging-market financial crisis look like? Will lessons learned from past experiences help to avoid future disasters? How can nations reform their pension systems to deal with retirement challenges in the 21st century?

The Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2009 has highlighted the resilience of the financial markets and broader economies from the developing world. This outcome owes much to the bitter experience and economic strategies developed and implemented at both a national and international level following the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997-1998. The objective of this volume is to investigate and assess the impact and response to the crisis from an emerging markets perspective including asset pricing, contagion, financial intermediation, market structure and regulation. Our hope is that the assembled papers will offer clear insights into the complex financial arrangements that now link emerging and developed financial markets in the current economic environment. The volume spans four dimensions: first, a series of background studies offer explanations of the causes and impacts of the crisis on emerging markets more generally; then, implications are considered. The third and final sections provide insights from regional and country-specific perspectives.

Whether you're a full-time trader looking to make a living or a part-time trader looking to make some extra money, the foreign exchange (forex) market has what you desire--the potential to make sizeable profits and 24/7 accessibility.

But to make it in today's forex market, you need more than a firm understanding of the tools and techniques of this discipline. You need the guidance of someone who has participated, and prevailed, in this type of fast-paced environment.

Raghee Horner has successfully traded in the forex market for over a decade, and now, in Thirty Days of Forex Trading, she shares her experiences in this field by chronicling one full month of trading real money. First, Horner introduces you to the tools of the forex trade, and then she moves on to show you exactly what she does, day after day, to find potentially profitable opportunities in the forex market.

Part instructional guide, part trading journal, Thirty Days of Forex Trading will show you--through Horner's firsthand examples--how to enter the forex market with confidence and exit with profits.

The New Economy Handbook will primarily serve reference users in business schools, economics departments, public and university libraries, special libraries, and institutions/agencies concerned with finance, trade, e-commerce, banking, and other regulatory, trade, and commercial activities. Secondary users will be business professionals and managers, as well as entrepreneurs, bankers, and others who need traditional economic information and data about new technology firms. Because of the scope of its table of contents, the book might well be used as a supplement to many courses.
The revolutions that brought about the New Economy are quietly embedded in familiar, old products, not necessarily ringing, beeping, and vibrating next to our skins. Why is the bulky, battery-operated e-book the new economy, while Lockheed-Martin's swooping F-16 is consigned to the Old Economy?
The information technology boom of the 1990s stoked a New Economy characterized by surging output per worker but with hard-to-measure and vulnerable underpinnings. Faster productivity is, of course, the key to higher living standards. The most important aspect of the New Economy might not, therefore, be the shift to high-tech industries, but the way that Information Technology improves the efficiency of all parts of the economy.
This collection of original essays offers the first thorough investigation of the New Economy. Its poignancy is even more apparent in the wake of the 1990s technology bubble. Articles share a format that encourages accessibilty, including an outline, glossary, and summary, and an extensive index adds utility. Written for students and scholars seeking authoritative data and perspectives.

China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is intended to radically increase investment and integration along a series of land and maritime routes. As the initiative involves more than 100 countries or international organizations and huge amounts of infrastructure construction, cooperation between many different markets is essential to its success. Cheung and Hong have edited a collection of essays that, between them, examine a range of practical issues facing the BRI and how those issues are being addressed in a range of countries. Such challenges include managing financing and investment, ensuring infrastructure connectivity, and handling the necessary e-commerce and physical logistics. Emphasizing the role of Hong Kong as an intermediary and enabler in the process, this book attempts to tackle the key practical challenges facing the BRI and anticipate how these challenges will affect the initiative's further development. The book provides a holistic and international approach to understanding the implementation of the BRI and its implications for the future economic integration of this huge region. Chapter 5 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tandfbis/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9780429467172_oachapter5.pdf

Recent Advances in Financial Engineering 2012 is the Proceedings of the International Workshop on Finance 2012, which was held at the University of Tokyo on October 30 and 31, 2012. This workshop was organized by the Center for Advanced Research in Finance (CARF), Graduate School of Economics, the University of Tokyo, and Graduate School of Social Sciences, Tokyo Metropolitan University (TMU).This annual workshop, which was first held in 2011, is a successor to the Daiwa International Workshop (2004 to 2008) and the KIER-TMU International Workshop (2009 to 2010). The workshop was designed for the exchange of new ideas in financial engineering and to serves as a bridge between academic researchers and practitioners. To these ends, the speakers shared various interesting ideas, information on new methods, and their up-to-date research results. In the 2012 workshop, we invited nine leading scholars, including three keynote speakers, from various countries, and the two-day workshop resulted in many fruitful discussions.The book consists of eight papers, all refereed, that were related to the presentations at the International Workshop on Finance 2012. In these papers, the latest concepts, methods, and techniques related to current topics in financial engineering are proposed and reviewed.

The Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) and the mean-variance (M-V) rule, which are based on classic expected utility theory, have been heavily criticized theoretically and empirically. The advent of behavioral economics, prospect theory and other psychology-minded approaches in finance challenges the rational investor model from which CAPM and M-V derive. Haim Levy argues that the tension between the classic financial models and behavioral economics approaches is more apparent than real. This book aims to relax the tension between the two paradigms. Specifically, Professor Levy shows that although behavioral economics contradicts aspects of expected utility theory, CAPM and M-V are intact in both expected utility theory and cumulative prospect theory frameworks. There is furthermore no evidence to reject CAPM empirically when ex-ante parameters are employed. Professionals may thus comfortably teach and use CAPM and behavioral economics or cumulative prospect theory as coexisting paradigms.

Modern money, having now become a key tool of government economic policy and a source of massive tax revenues, has strayed far from its original purpose. This is doubly regrettable, as the better money functions at an individual level in satisfying demand for quality, the better it is for economic prosperity and freedom.This book presents how modern money works both in the domestic economy and globally, outlining the essence of what makes good money. How does modern money differ from this ideal? By focusing on the dichotomy between globalization on the one hand and modern money's base in the nation state (or group of states) on the other hand, the book demonstrates how US dominance in determining monetary conditions globally has grown since the mid-1990s. The book then discusses the adverse consequences, many of which are camouflaged, of present money doctrines now so widely and radically applied, presenting novel research on how the US by pursuing bad monetary policies has been the catalyst to deepening geo-political danger. The book continues by setting out how the illusions of asset inflation will fade, most likely in the midst of economic and financial tumult. The forces which bring about that income emanate in part from the long-run costs of growing mal-investment and monopolization which occur under monetary inflation especially in the context of a digitalization revolution. Apologists for the present monetary regime rest much of their case on these illusions and on the contention that the bill for the costs comes only in the long run. This book dismantles that case. A Guide to Good Money provides readers with the sight of a pathway to a promised land of real prosperity founded on sound money beyond those lost illusions, and will be of interest to academics, students, practitioners, and central bankers.

The concept of risk-sharing in financial and social contracts is one of the unique features of Islamic finance. Many theoretical studies generally claim superiority of an Islamic financial system based on pure equity and participatory modes of financing, while empirical studies provide mixed results. Studies and discussions are needed to fully understand how Islamic finance could contribute to the ongoing discussion of financial stability. Against this background, this book addresses various aspects of Islamic finance and the risk-sharing mechanism contributions to the overall macroeconomic and financial stability. Undoubtedly, the findings and recommendation from this book should be of great interest not only to future academic researchers in the field of macroeconomic stability and Islamic finance, but also to policy makers and regulators who are keen on drawing lessons from Islamic finance experiences to prevent similar crisis in the future.

Behavioural economics and behavioural finance are rapidly expanding fields that are continually growing in prominence. While orthodox economic models are built upon restrictive and simplifying assumptions about rational choice and efficient markets, behavioural economics offers a robust alternative using insights and evidence that rest more easily with our understanding of how real people think, choose and decide. This insightful textbook introduces the key concepts from this rich, interdisciplinary approach to real-world decision-making. This new edition of Behavioural Economics and Finance is a thorough extension of the first edition, including updates to the key chapters on prospect theory; heuristics and bias; time and planning; sociality and identity; bad habits; personality, moods and emotions; behavioural macroeconomics; and well-being and happiness. It also includes a number of new chapters dedicated to the themes of incentives and motivations, behavioural public policy and emotional trading. Using pedagogical features such as chapter summaries and revision questions to enhance reader engagement, this text successfully blends economic theories with cutting-edge multidisciplinary insights. This second edition will be indispensable to anyone interested in how behavioural economics and finance can inform our understanding of consumers' and businesses' decisions and choices. It will appeal especially to undergraduate and graduate students but also to academic researchers, public policy-makers and anyone interested in deepening their understanding of how economics, psychology and sociology interact in driving our everyday decision-making.

Although microcredit programmes have long been considered efficient development tools, many forms of debt-induced distress have emerged in their wake. This has brought to light the problem of over-indebtedness, a topic which has been previously underexplored in the literature. This new book, from a group of leading scholars, explores the manifestations, scale, and economic and social implications of household over-indebtedness in areas conventionally considered as financially excluded. The book approaches debt not only as a financial transaction, but also as a form of social bond, and offers a socioeconomic analysis of over-indebtedness. The volume puts forward a broad definition of over-indebtedness, highlighting its situational and semantic complexity and diversity. It provides a close analysis of local conceptions of debt and over-indebtedness, highlighting frameworks of calculation and the constant renegotiation of their boundaries. On top of this, it looks far beyond microcredit to examine all the financial practices that individuals juggle. The volume argues that over-indebtedness has more to do with social inequalities than financial illiteracy, and should therefore be understood in the light of global trends of financialization. It also reveals the ambiguity of "financial inclusion" policies, and in many respects questions the actions of new credit providers. This book will be valuable reading for students, researchers and policy makers interested in microfinance and development issues.