Thomas Malthus identified a crucial tension at the heart of a market economy: While an accumulation of wealth is necessary to provide the capital investment needed to generate growth, too much accumulation will cause planned saving to exceed profitable investment, which will result in secular stagnation, a condition of low growth and underemployment of resources. Keynes drew inspiration from Malthus in his attempt to comprehend the causes of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Now, Aronoff demonstrates how a related but slightly different aspect of Malthus' thought can illuminate one of the most pressing issues of our times. In A Theory of Accumulation and Secular Stagnation, Aronoff explores Malthus' ideas relating to secular stagnation and uses the insight gained to understand the origins of the subpar growth and tepid employment, periodically punctuated by booms, that has plagued the US economy since the turn of the millennium. He explains how the rise of mercantilism among Asian countries - principally China - and increased income concentration generated an upsurge in excess saving. This accumulation created a chronic deficiency in demand while also depressing interest rates, which generated a search for yield that fuelled periodic booms.

This book examines essential problems in the current International Monetary System, especially those concerning the International Standard. To do so, it focuses on the different monetary systems of today's major currencies - the US dollar, the euro and the CNY, as well as the performance of the standards used in the international monetary system, i.e., the SDRs. In addition, it projects the potential consequences of including the Chinese CNY in the current SDR system, thus proposing a reform of the SDRs. The analytical research is mainly based on a performance comparison of the major international standards in the current international monetary system. The author illustrates that the political/policy reactions and economic philosophies underlying each monetary system constitute not only reasonable responses to the current international monetary system, but also fundamental factors in decisions concerning changes to or reforms of the international monetary system.div>

This textbook provides an introduction to environmental finance and investments. The current situation raises fundamental questions that this book aims to address. Under which conditions could carbon pricing schemes contribute to a significant decrease in emissions? What are the new investment strategies that the Kyoto Protocol and the emerging carbon pricing schemes around the world should promote? In the context of carbon regulation through emission trading schemes, what is the trade-off between production, technological changes, and pollution? What is the nature of the relation between economic growth and the environment? This book intends to provide students and practitioners with the knowledge and the theoretical tools necessary to answer these and other related questions in the context of the so-called environmental finance theory. This is a new research strand that investigates the economic, financial, and managerial impacts of carbon pricing policies.

This volume presents five surveys with extensive bibliographies and six original contributions on set optimization and its applications in mathematical finance and game theory. The topics range from more conventional approaches that look for minimal/maximal elements with respect to vector orders or set relations, to the new complete-lattice approach that comprises a coherent solution concept for set optimization problems, along with existence results, duality theorems, optimality conditions, variational inequalities and theoretical foundations for algorithms. Modern approaches to scalarization methods can be found as well as a fundamental contribution to conditional analysis. The theory is tailor-made for financial applications, in particular risk evaluation and [super-]hedging for market models with transaction costs, but it also provides a refreshing new perspective on vector optimization. There is no comparable volume on the market, making the book an invaluable resource for researchers working in vector optimization and multi-criteria decision-making, mathematical finance and economics as well as [set-valued] variational analysis.

The 2008 financial crisis was a watershed moment which clearly influenced the public's perception of the role of 'finance' in society. Since 2008, a plethora of books and newspaper articles have been produced accusing the academic community of being unable to produce valid models which can accommodate those extreme events. This unique Handbook brings together leading practitioners and academics in the areas of banking, mathematics, and law to present original research on the key issues affecting financial modelling since the 2008 financial crisis. As well as exploring themes of distributional assumptions and efficiency the Handbook also explores how financial modelling can possibly be re-interpreted in light of the 2008 crisis.

This fully updated third edition is devoted to the analysis of various Stochastic Dominance (SD) decision rules. It discusses the pros and cons of each of the alternate SD rules, the application of these rules to various research areas like statistics, agriculture, medicine, measuring income inequality and the poverty level in various countries, and of course, to investment decision-making under uncertainty. The book features changes and additions to the various chapters, and also includes two completely new chapters. One deals with asymptotic SD and the relation between FSD and the maximum geometric mean (MGM) rule (or the maximum growth portfolio). The other new chapter discusses bivariate SD rules where the individual's utility is determined not only by his own wealth, but also by his standing relative to his peer group. Stochastic Dominance: Investment Decision Making under Uncertainty, 3rd Ed. covers the following basic issues: the SD approach, asymptotic SD rules, the mean-variance (MV) approach, as well as the non-expected utility approach. The non-expected utility approach focuses on Regret Theory (RT) and mainly on prospect theory (PT) and its modified version, cumulative prospect theory (CPT) which assumes S-shape preferences. In addition to these issues the book suggests a new stochastic dominance rule called the Markowitz stochastic dominance (MSD) rule corresponding to all reverse-S-shape preferences. It also discusses the concept of the multivariate expected utility and analyzed in more detail the bivariate expected utility case. From the reviews of the second edition: "This book is an economics book about stochastic dominance. ... is certainly a valuable reference for graduate students interested in decision making under uncertainty. It investigates and compares different approaches and presents many examples. Moreover, empirical studies and experimental results play an important role in this book, which makes it interesting to read." (Nicole Bauerle, Mathematical Reviews, Issue 2007 d)

This book is the first of the two volumes featuring selected articles from the 14th Eurasia Business and Economics conference held in Barcelona, Spain, in October 2014. Peer-reviewed articles in this first volume present latest research breakthroughs in the areas of Accounting, Corporate Governance, Finance and Banking, Institutional and International Economics, and Regional Studies. The contributors are both distinguished and young scholars from different parts of the World.

This book focuses on the concepts and applications of risk-based asset allocation. Markowitz's traditional approach to asset allocation suffers from serious drawbacks when implemented. These mainly arise from the estimation risk associated with the necessary input the most critical being expected returns. With the financial crisis, there has been an increasing interest in asset allocation approaches that don't need expected returns as input, known as risk-based approaches. The book provides an analysis of the different solutions that fit this description: the equal-weighting approach, the global minimum-variance approach, the most diversified portfolio approach and the risk parity approach. In addition to a theoretical discussion of these, it presents practical applications in different investment environments. Three different evaluation dimensions are considered to put these approaches to the test: financial efficiency, diversification and portfolio stability.

This book is the second of the two volumes featuring selected articles from the 14th Eurasia Business and Economics conference held in Barcelona, Spain, in October 2014. Peer-reviewed articles in this second volume present latest research findings and breakthroughs in the areas of General Management, Human Resource Management, Marketing, SMEs, and Entrepreneurship. The contributors are both distinguished and young scholars from different parts of the World.

With globalisation comes an increase in the threat from systemic risk. As national economies become more globally entwined many argue that insufficient attention is being given to systemic risk; a principal contributor to recent economic crises. Focusing on the Polish financial system, this book addresses this critical issue within a global economic context. It advocates that accurate risk management practices and appropriate micro and macroeconomic policies can be created and maintained in order to manage systemic risk at both a national and international level. The book reviews current systemic risk management practices, analysing stability and existing micro- and macroprudential policies, before examining the current risks involved in investing in financial instruments and those associated with investing in stock exchanges. It offers suggestions for the effective implementation of a well-designed public policy, through well managed fiscal and monetary policies, and reflects the roles of households and companies in planning, organizing, and controlling socio-economic activity to control risk. Risk Management in the Polish Financial System aims to redefine the taxonomy of systemic risk, offering practical and regulatory socio-economic processes which can be applied to current risk management practices, as well as provide a risk map for the years to come.

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 book is devoted to recent developments and applications of multiple criteria decision aid tools in the field of finance, insurance and investment. It illustrates recent methods and procedures designed to solve problems related to finance, insurance and portfolio selection formulated through a mathematical programming framework and for which a large number of conflicting and incommensurable objectives (criteria, attributes) is simultaneously optimized. The book introduces researchers and practitioners to recent theoretical and methodological developments in multi-attributes portfolio selection, multiple criteria analysis in finance, insurance and investment. It is based on selected and invited papers presented and discussed at the 2013 International Conference on Multidimensional Finance, Insurance and Investment (ICMFII'13), held at the College of Business Administration at the University of Bahrain from 25th to 27th November 2013 with the co-sponsorship of the International Society on Multiple Criteria Decision Making and the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences - MCDM section.

This textbook first introduces the reader to return measurement and then goes on to compare the time-weighted rate of return (TWR) with the money-weighted rate of return (MWR). To emphasize the importance of risk in conjunction with return, different tracking errors are analyzed and ex-post versus ex-ante risk figures are compared. The author then proceeds to modern portfolio theory (MPT) and illustrates how the constraints interfere substantially in the construction of optimized portfolios. As a conclusion, the book provides the reader with all the essential aspects of investment controlling.

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.

This exciting new addition to Palgrave Studies in Islamic Banking, Finance, and Economics argues that social capital can facilitate rule-compliance and co-operation in the sharing of risk in financial and economic activities.

An authoritative graduate textbook on information choice, an exciting frontier of research in economics and finance Most theories in economics and finance predict what people will do, given what they know about the world around them. But what do people know about their environments? The study of information choice seeks to answer this question, explaining why economic players know what they know-and how the information they have affects collective outcomes. Instead of assuming what people do or don't know, information choice asks what people would choose to know. Then it predicts what, given that information, they would choose to do. In this textbook, Laura Veldkamp introduces graduate students in economics and finance to this important new research. The book illustrates how information choice is used to answer questions in monetary economics, portfolio choice theory, business cycle theory, international finance, asset pricing, and other areas. It shows how to build and test applied theory models with information frictions. And it covers recent work on topics such as rational inattention, information markets, and strategic games with heterogeneous information. Illustrates how information choice is used to answer questions in monetary economics, portfolio choice theory, business cycle theory, international finance, asset pricing, and other areas Teaches how to build and test applied theory models with information frictions Covers recent research on topics such as rational inattention, information markets, and strategic games with heterogeneous information

Financial markets play a huge role in society but theoretical reflections on what constitutes these markets are scarce. Drawing on sources in philosophy, finance, the history of modern mathematics, sociology and anthropology, Abstract Market Theory elaborates a new philosophy of the market in order to redress this gap between reality and theory.

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.

The solution to the uninhibited lending that was commonplace before the financial crisis has been to introduce tighter regulation to ensure robustness within banks. However, this solution has overlooked the underlying problem of ethical failure in the industry. In the wake of numerous bank collapses, many survivors continue in unprincipled conduct because ethical virtues have not been instilled. This book investigates the ethical basis of banking practice. It explores the conflict between the interests of banks and their customers, and how this conflict plays out in relation to the lending policies and fee structures of banks. Where such lending policies have a significant effect on banks, their customers and a range of stakeholders, the author investigates the views of leading bankers on their lending practices. The author then goes on to debate the events of the global financial crisis from a moral perspective, and argues that ethical failure triggered the American sub-prime calamities which have devastated homeowners and the global economy. The book argues that American banks and regulators both operated on the erroneous supposition that the quest after extreme profits would be restrained by free market forces. Where banks have a central role and importance in all commerce and hence in all societies, the author concludes by revealing a set of virtues that are necessary for banks to espouse moral conduct. He suggests that these virtues can be embedded through leadership and cultural change, with the aim of developing an account of the virtues appropriate to bankers and banking.

The book shows that self-help in commercial law is a fast, inexpensive and efficient alternative to court enforcement. Self-help remedies and private debt collection are largely but not exclusively features of common law jurisdictions, since remnants of private enforcement can still be found in contract law in civilian systems. The book argues that - despite their usefulness - self-help and private debt collection entail significant risks, especially for consumer debtors. This means that private enforcement needs to be accompanied by the introduction of tailor-made consumer-debtor protection regulation. Specific attention is given to factoring, which functions in many instances as a form of pseudo-private debt collection and which has been exploited to bypass sector-specific consumer protection regulations.

Investors receive thousands of business plans, but only a few businesses receive funding. While there are many "how-tos" out there for entrepreneurs, no one has focused on the mind-set, tools, and foundation that are important to investors, and therefore essential to entrepreneurs. Getting Funded examines and develops a framework on which to base a business concept, conduct due diligence research and risk analysis, refine a business model and reformulate a business strategy, and develop a risk and reward structure that protects investment money and incentivizes entrepreneurs to successfully manage the opportunity to create and share value. Getting Funded shows entrepreneurs the tools and framework critical to a venture's success, teaching entrepreneurs to refine their business model and strategy as well as to develop an investment model to improve the investability of the venture and thereby increase the chances of getting funded. Even without the need for external funding, these tools will improve a venture's potential odds of success. Listen to the author discuss the book on the UK-based radio show, The Evening Show with Simon Rose.

In this book, the relationship between financial decision-making and chronic regulatory focus is explored to provide a better understanding of consumer decisions. Financial decisions are modelled on the basis of assets and portfolios sensitive to particular regulatory foci. Studies in the book test whether participants select assets/portfolios that conform to their respective foci. In addition, given that gender, age and education can shape financial decisions, further hypotheses are put forth to explore whether these are related to asset and portfolio selection and regulatory focus. As consumers tend to make financial decisions prior to priming, this book diverts from previous research involving primed states of regulatory focus and instead explores the chronic state. The study employs two complementary instruments, the eye tracker and self-report, to explicate the hypotheses. As the main hypotheses were not supported, the author posits that the harsh worldwide financial climate may have acted as an external influence, moving participants to select assets and portfolios not aligned with their foci. This study marks a valuable contribution to the current literature concerning financial decision-making, the underlying motivational systems and external influences, and will promote further research in these areas. It offers an essential resource for academics and students interested in how regulatory focus interacts with financial decisions and the overarching economic climate.

China's financial reforms have undergone a large-scale transformation over the past several years. This book aims to outline the structure and current features of China's monetary policy, drawing upon the author's years of experience working within the People's Bank of China and insider's view of the decision-making process.

The collapse of the Bretton Woods system in the early 1970s resulted in a transition to fluctuating rather than fixed currency system. This brought sterling into the turmoil of the world currency markets, and by the end of the 1970s, sterling had quietly ended its role as an international currency. Sterling-dollar diplomacy collapsed, bringing to an end what had hitherto been considered Britain's prime relationship. Britain and European Monetary Cooperation, 1964-1979 provides a unique perspective on these events, shedding light on the complexities of the historical context of British monetary diplomacy and exploring the country's attempt at a European approach to sterling in the 1960s and '70s. The book describes the political and economic approach Britain took at the turn of the 1970s, and explains how the country became restricted by the burden of the sterling balances. In this book, the author illustrates how these developments offered opportunity for both cooperation and conflict in the light of monetary diplomacy. He demonstrates how Britain's struggle to achieve exchange rate stability, twinned with controversy over European Economic Community membership, finally prompted serious reconsideration of economic policy-making. This book challenges the commonly-held perception of the decline of sterling, and explains that, although Britain's attempt at a European approach failed, the decline of the currency was more complicated than a 'managed decline'.