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 papers in this volume were presented at three invited sessions at the annual meeting of the Western Economic Association in Lake Tahoe, Nevada on June 30 and July 1, 1998. The comments of the speaker at each of these sessions are also included.

The papers focus on the widespread banking and financial crises that have plagued many countries worldwide. A study by the International Monetary Fund (Lindgren, Garcia, & Saal, 1996) reported that banking crises had been experienced by nearly three-quarters of its 180-plus member countries since 1980. And this was before the current problems in Korea and Southeast Asia. Only the African continent, where banking systems are generally quite primitive, appears to have been unaffected.

The papers in this volume amplify on the evidence in this area for additional countries; expand the earlier analyses; describe, discuss, and evaluate alternative procedures for resolving bank insolvencies and recapitalizing the banking system, and suggest ways of maintaining bank solvency and preventing reoccurrences of these costly crises.

The papers are timely, add considerably to our storehouse of knowledge, and are likely to be of particular value to policy makers, bankers, and fellow researchers.

Presenting state-of-the-art methods in the area, the book begins with a presentation of weak discrete time approximations of jump-diffusion stochastic differential equations for derivatives pricing and risk measurement. Using a moving least squares reconstruction, a numerical approach is then developed that allows for the construction of arbitrage-free surfaces. Free boundary problems are considered next, with particular focus on stochastic impulse control problems that arise when the cost of control includes a fixed cost, common in financial applications. The text proceeds with the development of a fear index based on equity option surfaces, allowing for the measurement of overall fear levels in the market. The problem of American option pricing is considered next, applying simulation methods combined with regression techniques and discussing convergence properties. Changing focus to integral transform methods, a variety of option pricing problems are considered. The COS method is practically applied for the pricing of options under uncertain volatility, a method developed by the authors that relies on the dynamic programming principle and Fourier cosine series expansions. Efficient approximation methods are next developed for the application of the fast Fourier transform for option pricing under multifactor affine models with stochastic volatility and jumps. Following this, fast and accurate pricing techniques are showcased for the pricing of credit derivative contracts with discrete monitoring based on the Wiener-Hopf factorisation. With an energy theme, a recombining pentanomial lattice is developed for the pricing of gas swing contracts under regime switching dynamics. The book concludes with a linear and nonlinear review of the arbitrage-free parity theory for the CDS and bond markets.

Academics and practitioners from a range of institutions across Europe provide a cutting-edge, practical, and comprehensive review on the financing of entrepreneurial ventures. From sourcing and obtaining funds, to financial tools for growing and managing the financial challenges and opportunities of the startup, Entrepreneurial Finance: The Art and Science of Growing Ventures is an engaging text that will equip entrepreneurs, students and early-stage investors to make sound financial decisions at every stage of a business' life. Largely reflecting European businesses and with a European perspective, the text is grounded in sound theoretical foundations. Case studies and success stories, as well as perspectives from the media and from experts, provide real-world applications, while a wealth of activities give students abundant opportunities to apply what they have learned. A must-have text for both graduate and undergraduate students in entrepreneurship, finance and management programs, as well as aspiring entrepreneurs in any field.

This book presents a forecasting mechanism of the price intervals for deriving the SCR (solvency capital requirement) eradicating the risk during the exercise period on one hand and measuring the risk by computing the hedging exit time function associating with smaller investments the date until which the value of the portfolio hedges the liabilities on the other. This information, summarized under the term "tychastic viability measure of risk" is an evolutionary alternative to statistical measures, when dealing with evolutions under uncertainty. The book is written by experts in the field and the target audience primarily comprises research experts and practitioners.

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.

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 15th volume in a series examining research in finance. It examines issues such as indirect financial distress and sales performance, stock market volatility and the business cycle, the behaviour of futures prices, and curved option pay-offs.

To help global managers and international business scholars understand the multiple influences of globalization and digital technology on global financial management, Carrada-Bravo has dispensed with traditional distinctions between corporate and global finance in order to bring a much-needed coherence to the practice and study of global finance. Throughout this well-structured and highly practical volume, he emphasizes the delivery of business experiences associated with the financial interaction between entities of two or more regions of the world via the Internet or other form of electronic communication. Knowledge of global financial issues in this context will help practitioners and academics alike judge how external shocks may affect the economy of a country or the financial picture of a corporation. Moreover, a firm understanding of global finance in the digital age will provide guidance in many decision-making scenarios, from how to profit from the disturbances associated with variations in currency to how to take advantage of technological changes in global communication. The author also suggests ways to isolate institutions from the harmful effects of such external shocks. He provides extensive coverage by including the financial experiences of corporations from the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa.

In 1978, the citizens of California took the historic step of voting for Proposition 13, thus reducing property taxes by 57%. Already known as a trend setting state, California's tax revolt was no different, as similar tax revisions quickly spread across the United States of America. In California, state and local governments struggled to find a way to manage the loss in revenue. On many occasions budget cuts were the solution. Library budgets were frequently the target of those cuts. Proposition 13 - America's Second Great Tax Revolt details how libraries prioritized, managed and reacted to hardships in this new world, and have done so in California for the last forty years where Proposition 13 is still the law. Library and information science professionals were facing budget cuts that were as high as 65% with little to no guarantee of what future budgets were to be. The actions they took, and the rationale behind those actions, offer significant lessons to be learned by the library community on both an academic and practitioner level. Exploring the intended and unintended consequences of Proposition 13, this book provides an insightful understanding of how to manage a library budget given a difficult funding situation. It examines the thought processes behind government financing and spending priorities, and considers how libraries can organize, and participate in activism to influence decision makers.

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."

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.

There s a buzzword that has quickly captured the imagination of product providers and investors alike: "hedge fund replication." In the broadest sense, replicating hedge fund strategies means replicating their return sources and corresponding risk exposures. However, there still lacks a coherent picture on what hedge fund replication means in practice, what its premises are, how to distinguish di erent approaches, and where this can lead us to.

Serving as a handbook for replicating the returns of hedge funds at considerably lower cost, "Alternative Beta Strategies and Hedge Fund Replication" provides a unique focus on replication, explaining along the way the return sources of hedge funds, and their systematic risks, that make replication possible. It explains the background to the new discussion on hedge fund replication and how to derive the returns of many hedge fund strategies at much lower cost, it differentiates the various underlying approaches and explains how hedge fund replication can improve your own investment process into hedge funds.

Written by the well known Hedge Fund expert and author Lars Jaeger, the book is divided into three sections: Hedge Fund Background, Return Sources, and Replication Techniques. Section one provides a short course in what hedge funds actually are and how they operate, arming the reader with the background knowledge required for the rest of the book. Section two illuminates the sources from which hedge funds derive their returns and shows that the majority of hedge fund returns derive from systematic risk exposure rather than manager "Alpha." Section three presents various approaches to replicating hedge fund returns by presenting the first and second generation of hedge fund replication products, points out the pitfalls and strengths of the various approaches and illustrates the mathematical concepts that underlie them.

With hedge fund replication going mainstream, this book provides clear guidance on the topic to maximise returns.

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.

This volume provides a coherent analysis of the economic, monetary and political aspects of growth dynamics in the Euro area. The different relevant aspects in this debate, presented and discussed by leading scholars and representatives of international organizations, include an assessment of the newest theoretical growth models for open economies, and empirical investigation of: the growth divergence between the US and Europe the extent to which fiscal co-ordination is desirable in a monetary union the role of product and labor market reforms the complex relationships between exchange rates and growth the contribution of monetary policy to economic growth and the prospects for economic growth in monetary unions. Although primarily focused on the Euro area, the analysis is equally relevant to all other common currency areas and will be welcomed by academics and students with an interest in European studies and financial economics, as well as policy and decision makers in international organisations, national institutions and central banks.

You've successfully started your own business and have created a comfortable lifestyle. What's next? How do you get there? In Show Me the Money, author Chia-Li Chien shows you how to strategically innovate your business foundation and enable you to position your company to get the value you deserve.

Show Me the Money illustrates why you should expect a return on your investment after the years of sweat equity and stress involved in being a business owner. Step by step, Chien demonstrates how to spend more time working on your business and not just in it. This book:

$ Empowers you to concentrate on your business
$ Shows you how to become an investor of your business
$ Prepares you to proactively select the right exit channels and recognize the right window of opportunity to cash out
$ Guides you in strategically safeguarding your return on investment
$ Teaches you business value drivers-driving the right future investors to you
$ Enables you to achieve financial independence and continue to be part of the virtual business cycle

Show Me the Money will help you avoid being the one-third of all businesses that close without the owners receiving their deserved cash and value.

Let me introduce what I call the G.U.P., my unofficial secret formula for success.

G.U.P. consists of three sets of variables that all of us must discover and use in order to obtain the successful status that represents a successful life - by one's own definition. That includes building a successful business and completing a successful exit from your business to realize your dream. This is the full cycle an entrepreneur goes through. G.U.P. helps you use your internal North Star or road map to get there. Read on to learn how to be successful and realize your dream of financial independence.

For centuries, the Chinese have believed that success hinges on three variables. All three variables must line up, just like a slot machine at a casino. When that happens, you've hit the jackpot and, in layman's terms, you're successful. This could be in any profession, any career, or anything in general that people describe as success. That is, you have to be in the right place at the right time, with the right people

This book considers the impact of incomplete information and heterogeneous beliefs on investor's optimal portfolio and consumption behavior and equilibrium asset prices. After a brief review of the existing incomplete information literature, the effect of incomplete information on investors' exptected utility, risky asset prices, and interest rates is described. It is demonstrated that increasing the quality of investors' information need not increase their expected utility and the prices of risky assets. The impact of heterogeneous beliefs on investors' portfolio and consumption behavior and equilibrium asset prices is shown to be non-trivial. Heterogeneous beliefs can explain a number of observed phenomena, such as the fact that equilibrium state-price densities are not log-normal, the "smile" in option implied volatility, and the patterns of implied risk aversion reported recently in the literature. It is also demonstrated that financial markets in general do not aggregate information efficiently, a fact that can explain the equity premium puzzle.

To have a clear picture of developments in public financial management, a multidimensional perspective of the field is needed, since governments--unlike for-profit organizations-- serve multiple and often conflicting interests. This book provides this dynamic approach by integrating insights from economics, business, and political science. Written by some of the leading scholars in the field, this collection presents eleven chapters that run the gamut of public financial management issues. Topics include: Transaction costs in contractual relationships; Uncertain conditions and probability assessment in the bond market; Rational choice and the institutional framework in public investment decision; E-Government financial management models; Budget balance as the building block of public financial strategy. Together the contributors present a robust framework for understanding and analyzing financial decision making in the public sector.