Microfinance is a broad variety of services, such as microcredit, for entrepreneurs and small businesses lacking access to banking and other financial services. As many smaller businesses and entrepreneurs may not be able to secure credit services, many microfinance promoters believe that it encourages entrepreneurial activities and inclusive growth. Microfinance and Its Impact on Entrepreneurial Development, Sustainability, and Inclusive Growth is an essential resource that empirically explores the role of microfinance in entrepreneurship development and the operational sustainability of microfinance institutions. It also highlights the impact of microfinance on entrepreneurship development in different countries and regions. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as risk management, women entrepreneurship, and strategic management, this book provides essential research for entrepreneurs, business managers, policy makers, researchers in the field of finance, and business professionals seeking relevant research on microfinance systems.

This book examines the way in which financial markets will develop over the coming years in the face of electronification and other technical innovations and increasing competition among international markets. It uses current research from the Bank of Finland in collaboration with researchers from Europe and the US, providing a good balance between the academic, policy, and practitioner communities.

What lies at the heart of financial regulation? Economic principles? Public interest motives? Bureaucratic procedures? Many academics have extensively written on financial regulation. Rarely, practitioners, and in particular European practitioners, have had their say, the opportunity to express their views on how financial regulation is and should be governed. The book attempts to fill that gap: heads of Securities Commissions, representatives of self-regulatory organizations and exchanges, lawyers, have debated on the different issues of regulation. They draw the lessons from their experience and their regulatory achievements.

Connects the literature on public policy and cryptocurrency, examining the governance and democracy implications of the rise in cryptocurrency use Explores cryptocurrency's current and potential impacts on principles such as equity and inclusion, efficiency and effectiveness, accountability, and quality of life Covers a range of public policy and public administration issues, offering readers an understanding of how cryptocurrency intersects with democracy, governance, fiscal and monetary policies, economic growth, corruption, and privacy.

Redefining Financial Services explores the fundamental redefinition of the role of financial intermediaries in the new century. Combining empirical knowledge with a historical approach, the author reveals that seven centuries of advances in technology have changed the nature of financial services very little. Examining the state of financial services today in the context of the new economy's evolution, Joe DiVanna investigates what changes are happening in the financial industry, where they are occurring, how they are materializing and, more importantly, why.

Sovereign risk and financial crises play a key role in current international economic developments, particularly in the case of economic downturns. As the Asian economic crisis in the late 1990s revealed once again, financial crises are the rule rather than the exception in capitalist economies. The event also revealed that international public debt agreements are contingent claims. In a world of increasing economic interdependencies, the issues of financial crises and country defaults are of critical importance. This volume goes to the heart of the academic discussion on sovereign risk and financial crises by centering on quantitative-empirical aspects, evaluating prominent approaches, and by proposing new methods. Part I of the volume identifies key factors and processes that are central in analyzing sovereign risk while Part II focuses on the determinants and effects of financial crises.

The year 2000 is the centenary year of the publication of Bachelier's thesis which - together with Harry Markovitz Ph.D. dissertation on portfolio selection in 1952 and Fischer Black's and Myron Scholes' solution of an option pricing problem in 1973 - is considered as the starting point of modern finance as a mathematical discipline. On this remarkable anniversary the workshop on mathematical finance held at the University of Konstanz brought together practitioners, economists and mathematicians to discuss the state of the art. Apart from contributions to the known discrete, Brownian, and LA(c)vy process models, first attempts to describe a market in a reasonable way by a fractional Brownian motion model are presented, opening many new aspects for practitioners and new problems for mathematicians. As most dynamical financial problems are stochastic filtering or control problems many talks presented adaptations of control methods and techniques to the classical financial problems in a [ portfolio selection a [ irreversible investment a [ risk sensitive asset allocation a [ capital asset pricing a [ hedging contingent claims a [ option pricing a [ interest rate theory. The contributions of practitioners link the theoretical results to the steadily increasing flow of real world problems from financial institutions into mathematical laboratories. The present volume reflects this exchange of theoretical and applied results, methods and techniques that made the workshop a fruitful contribution to the interdisciplinary work in mathematical finance.

Financial fraud, whether large or small is a persistent feature of the financial markets. If you scratch the surface of the investment world you'll find a continuous stream of major financial scandals which are almost unbelievable in the sheer scale of their subterfuge. The Con Men shines a spotlight on some of these gargantuan frauds from the last 25 years. It questions how these men did it, why they did it, how there were able to get away with it, proposes strategies and tactics so that the reader can avoid being swindled.

Microfinance has experienced dynamic development. Today, microfinance providers reach close to 100 million clients worldwide and are growing fast. New partnerships expand the impact of microfinance even further. Three types of partnerships are examined in this book, each consisting of a thematic pillar. Pillar I focuses on equity investments in microfinance, especially the possibilities for engaging private investors through structured microfinance investment funds. Rating agencies are involved in providing more transparency in this emerging fund industry. Pillar II focuses on collaboration among microfinance providers, governments, private investors and technology companies which help microfinance institutions to integrate new technologies into their business models, reducing cost and increasing outreach to clients. Pillar III covers micropensions, microinsurance and the role of securitisation for the future of microfinance.

Living in a market-driven economy where short-term profit and economic growth appear to be the ultimate goal, this book explores how Buddhist teachings could bridge the divide between our spiritual and material needs and reconcile the tension between doing good for social interest and doing well for financial success. This book serves as a pioneering effort to systematically introduce Buddhist Economics as an interdisciplinary subject to audience with limited background in either Buddhism or economics. It elaborates some core concepts in Buddhist teachings, their relevance to economics, and means of achieving sustainability for individuals, society and the environment with the cultivation of ethical living and well-being. Through scholarly research from relevant fields including Buddhist studies, economics, behavioral finance, cognitive science, and psychology, this book illustrates the relevance of Buddhist values in the contemporary economy and society, as well as the efficacy of Buddhist perspectives on decision-making in daily life.

This book provides cutting-edge material elaborating on monetary circuit theory and post-Keynesian monetary economics. It contributes to a new approach to monetary analysis, which provides original insights into the complex fields of money, banking, and finance.

This is the first book to introduce the major quantitative tools in risk management taking financial investments and logistics planning as the background: optimization and stochastic programming. Contained here are the fundamentals of portfolio selection theory from the point of view of risk control, and methods for risk control with new and popular risk measures such as VaR (Value-at-Risk) and CVaR (Conditional VaR). The book also introduces a new theory for risk management in more general investment situations such as flexible investment decisions, providing an accessible and comprehensive introduction to the interrelations between these fields of research. Basic concepts of stochastic programming are introduced, and their applications to risk management in inventory distribution and network design are covered as well. Illustrated by carefully chosen examples and supported by extensive data analyses, this book is highly recommended to readers who seek an in-depth and up-to-date integrated overview of the ever-expanding theoretical and quantitative fields of risk management in financial investment and logistics planning.

Fixed income volatility and equity volatility evolve heterogeneously over time, co-moving disproportionately during periods of global imbalances and each reacting to events of different nature. While the methodology for options-based "model-free" pricing of equity volatility has been known for some time, little is known about analogous methodologies for pricing various fixed income volatilities. This book fills this gap and provides a unified evaluation framework of fixed income volatility while dealing with disparate markets such as interest-rate swaps, government bonds, time-deposits and credit. It develops model-free, forward looking indexes of fixed-income volatility that match different quoting conventions across various markets, and uncovers subtle yet important pitfalls arising from naive superimpositions of the standard equity volatility methodology when pricing various fixed income volatilities.

The effective functioning of payment systems across the related infrastructures is one of the most important factors for the efficient operation of the financial system of any country. As an integral part of the financial sector, payment systems are essentially the lifeblood of any modern economy. They are critical to the confidence of the users of the payment instruments, the payment systems and, ultimately, the public confidence in a country’s currency. Though not always consciously experienced, and in most cases taken for granted, payment systems touch the lives of millions of citizens every day. For the first time ever South African consumers and businesses have access to a practical, easy to read, but comprehensive guide to the various ways of making payments – including all the key features, but also risks and disadvantages associated with each option, ranging from card payments, electronic payments, cheques, cash and even cross-border. In addition, the basic principles underlying these payment systems are explained, as well as the inner workings and regulation of the national payment system. The various structures and organisations involved – both local and international – are also comprehensively covered. This unique book will be of interest to both professionals working in relevant areas of banking, insurance, financial services and related areas of technology provision, as well as ordinary users who wish to be better informed about both the benefits and pitfalls associated with various forms of payments. Some of the key questions that this book answers include: What are early debit orders?; How can I stop or reverse a debit order; How do I reverse a credit card transaction; How can I make an immediate inter-bank payment on the internet; What risks should I be aware of when making internet payments; What is the National Payment System; Who regulates payments in South Africa; What options do I have when making international payments.

This handbook focuses on the key issues that continue to hinder the formal development of cryptocurrencies as a mainstream financial asset. It primarily examines reputationally damaging events, particularly those related to illicit behavior. The goal of the handbook is to determine whether some of these events could be mitigated by improved or at least coordinated international regulation. The handbook will be useful for specialist technical audiences such as legal, accounting and financial practices. It will also be beneficial for upper level masters and research students in economics, law, accounting, taxation, investment and portfolio management.

Many financial institutions have in recent years failed failed either completely, and gone into bankruptcy, or failed in the sense that they have not achieved what their owners or their customers expected them to deliver. This has had significant and adverse effects on customers, taxpayers, shareholders, and sometimes management. There has been much discussion of what should be done about this, and some action has been taken. But has it been the right kind of action?

Crises of the sort being experienced are low probability but high impact events. This volume, from an international group of scholars, deals with two main issues: firstly, how can the governance of the financial sector by the authorities be improved and secondly, how can the governance of firms and institutions within the sector be improved to render the probability and cost of future crises lower?

Poor governance has been one of the major contributors to the global financial crisis. With better governance of and in the financial sector the financial crisis might well have been avoided altogether and certainly could have been much milder in its impact. This is not simply a case of being wise after the event. These problems were widely discussed before the event, but little action was taken. This book explores not only what the contribution of poor governance was to the crisis and to its depth, but also why it is often difficult to improve governance. The volume offers a positive critique of the measures that are being put in place in the light of the experience of the crisis and suggests how they might plausibly be improved.

This book will be of particular interest to students and researchers of economics and international finance, but will also prove profitable reading for practitioners and the interested public.

The current financial crisis has revealed serious flaws in models, measures and, potentially, theories, that failed to provide forward-looking expectations for upcoming losses originated from market risks. The Proceedings of the Perm Winter School 2011 propose insights on many key issues and advances in financial markets modeling and risk measurement aiming to bridge the gap. The key addressed topics include: hierarchical and ultrametric models of financial crashes, dynamic hedging, arbitrage free modeling the term structure of interest rates, agent based modeling of order flow, asset pricing in a fractional market, hedge funds performance and many more.

As over half the assets of many major companies are now intangible assets, there is an increasing need to assess more accurately the value of intellectual property (IP) from a wider interdisciplinary perspective. Re-evaluating risk and understanding the true value of intellectual property is a major problem, particularly important for business practitioners, including business analysts and investors, venture capitalists, accountants, insurance experts, intellectual property lawyers and also for those who hold intellectual property assets, such as media, publishing and pharmaceutical companies, and universities and other research bodies. Written by the foremost authorities in the field from Britain, Japan and the US, this book considers the latest developments and puts forward much new thinking. The book includes thorough coverage of developments in Japan, which is reviewing the value of IP at a much quicker pace than any other country and is registering ever-increasing numbers of patents in the course of inventing its way out of economic inertia.

This edited volume brings together finance industry perspectives from top global institutions, which focus on the bottom line for integrating ESG factors into the operations of the finance industry. Executives and senior practitioners answer the question: 'does following sustainable finance principles make commercial sense for a commercially-oriented financial institution, and if so, what evidence is there?' '

A situation in economics that is little short of scandalous is the almost total neglect by mainstream economics of the importance of power in economic affairs. Power in this context means the ability to bend market forces in one's favor, influencing and shaping key economic variables such as prices, wages, and other income determinants. As John Kenneth Galbraith as tutely observes: a dominant fact in economic life is the desire of people everywhere and in all circumstances to get control over their personal lives and their incomes-to escape from the "tyranny of the market. " Power is the means to this end. Ever since Adam Smith, economists have been fascinated by and lavish in their praise for the workings of the market. All modern textbooks are built around Smithian ideas about markets and the way the "invisible hand" works through competition for society's better ment. Yet one can search nearly in vain through leading texts, under graduate and graduate alike, for any reference to market or economic power. This is the situation in spite of the fact that the drive for power, the urge to get control over one's income, permeates the economy as much as does competition. This is a scandal For a discipline that claims for itself the mantle of a science-one which wants to be accorded the same respect given the natural sciences-it is almost incomprehensible that it should ignore a major force at work in the real economic world."