The Spanish expression--la cultura cura (culture heals)--is an affirmation of the potential healing power of a variety of cultural practices that together constitute the ethos of a people. What happens, however, when cultures themselves are in jeopardy? What are the "antidotes" or healing modalities for an ailing culture? Healing Cultures addresses these questions from a variety of disciplines--anthropology, holistic folk traditions, literature, film, cultural and religious studies--bringing together the broad range of beliefs and the spectrum of practices that have sustained the peoples and cultures of the Caribbean.

Through a coherent framework for pursuing such far-ranging changes, this easy-to-understand book addresses new ways for individuals and organizations to invest grant funds, approach regulatory structures that guide giving, and define their goals, activities, outcomes, and achievements. The author applies basic principles of industrial theory and evolution to examine, with a trained scholar's eye, how individual organizations, associations, and the philanthropic infrastructure can work more effectively.

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Everything you need to know to succeed in today's fastest growing sector of the consulting market.

Jim Ainsworth is an extremely successful financial planning professional with more than 30 years in the business. In How to Become a Successful Financial Consultant, he tells you everything you need to know to move into financial consulting. He familiarizes you with all the types of planning that financial consultants deal with, as well as the various investment vehicles. And, based on his own experiences and those of other successful financial consultants across the nation, he supplies you with a proven blueprint for success. You get expert advice, guidance, and insiders' tips on how to:

• Get the education, experience, and licensing you need to qualify.
• Get certified (and whether you need to).
• Develop a surefire success plan.
• Set up a practice and attract clients.
• Network, market, and sell your services.
• Set fees and collect other forms of compensation for your services.
• Avoid the 10 most common mistakes that beginners make.
• Get the most out of meetings and professional conferences.

Written by Jim Ainsworth, a financial planning professional with 30 years in the business, this valuable guide provides professionals interested in making the move into financial consulting with everything they need to know to make a living investing other people's money.

Drawing on his personal experiences and those of colleagues across North America, Ainsworth covers all the bases. He begins by describing the three major groups of financial planners and the seven different styles of asset management and helps you to decide which is right for you. You find out all about the various types of financial planning that most consultants deal with—including estate planning, retirement planning, and family financial planning—and the best investment vehicles currently available.

Ainsworth then cuts to the chase and provides the nuts-and-bolts information you need to make it as a financial adviser. Writing in a down-to-earth style, he tells you what type of education and experience you need to become an effective financial consultant, how to become licensed, how to get started in business, how to set fees and receive compensation, how to market your services and promote different financial instruments, and much more. He shows you how to develop a surefire success plan, and he supplies expert advice and guidance on how to avoid the top 10 beginners' mistakes.

Throughout this book, Ainsworth advocates taking a holistic approach to financial planning—one that takes into consideration not just people's differing needs, but their contrasting attitudes about money and investments. To that end, he provides insightful profiles of the different types of "money personalities" in the financial world and shows you how to identify and successfully work with each type.

How to Become a Successful Financial Consultant is your complete guide to making it in today's fastest growing sector of the consulting market.

Following years of control and regulation, there has been a massive trend towards the liberalisation of financial markets. This volume provides an analysis of this process and considers likely future developments. It is divided into three parts: the first covers the behaviour of households and firms; the second includes papers on stock, bond and currency markets; and the third part analyses the behaviour and performance of financial intermediaries, particularly banks. The topics examined range from the demand for personal and corporate credit and the allocation of savers' wealth, to innovations in securities and services traded in financial markets, and their regulation. The essays represent a blend of both theoretical and empirical work, the latter focusing in particular on Europe and the recent integration of financial markets on the continent. Discussions of the essays are provided by some of the world's leading financial economists.

This two volume Handbook contains chapters on the main areas to which Post-Keynesians have made sustained and important contributions. These include theories of accumulation, distribution, pricing, money and finance, international trade and capital flows, the environment, methodological issues, criticism of mainstream economics and Post-Keynesian policies. The Introduction outlines what is in the two volumes, in the process placing Post-Keynesian procedures and contributions in appropriate contexts.

As the world's political and economic leaders struggle with the aftermath of the Financial Debacle of 2008, this book asks the question: have financial crises presented opportunities to rebuild the financial system? Examining eight global financial crises since the late nineteenth century, this new historical study offers insights into how the financial landscape - banks, governance, regulation, international cooperation, and balance of power - has been (or failed to be) reshaped after a systemic shock. It includes careful consideration of the Great Depression of the 1930s, the only experience of comparable moment to the recession of the early twenty-first century, yet also marked in its differences. Taking into account not only the economic and business aspects of financial crises, but also their political and socio-cultural dimensions, the book highlights both their idiosyncrasies and common features, and assesses their impact in the broader context of long-term historical development.

Capital, Accumulation, and Money: An Integration of Capital, Growth, and Monetary Theory is a book about capital and money. A root concept of capital is formulated that allows for most existing concepts of capital to be unified and related to one another in consistent fashion. Capital and monetary theory are integrated in a non-mathematical framework that imposes a number of constraints on the macro behavior of an economy, constraints which make for the straightforward understanding of such concepts as the real stock of money, real-balance effects, and the general price level. New and illuminating insights are also provided into aggregate supply and demand, natural and money rates of interest, the relationship between real and monetary economies, and economic growth and development. This fully expanded, revised, and updated edition features important new material on a variety of timely topics, including: * Factors leading to the financial meltdown and turmoil of 2007-09; * Why bubbles form in asset markets and how these impact on the real economy; * The importance of a lender-of-last-resort in times of financial stress; * Future financing and funding of the U. S. Social Security System. Additionally, the author offers a number of ideas for alleviating the severity, if not the avoidance altogether, of financial crises in the future. This is a book for those -- students (both graduate and undergraduate) and their teachers, investors, and the informed public -- who want an understanding of how economies and financial markets function, without an advanced degree in mathematics.

Household finance studies is a relatively recent field, exploring a growing understanding of how households make financial decisions relating to the functions of consumption, payment, risk management, borrowing and investing; how institutions provide goods and services to satisfy these financial functions of households; and how interventions by firms, governments and other parties affect the provision of financial services. This timely book analyses existing findings about household behavior as well as findings related to policy interventions. With international case studies, this book reviews a topic of global importance and brings a crucial up-to-date survey of the field for researchers and postgraduate students.

This volume aims to discuss the current research, theory, methodology and applications of macropreudential regulation and policy for the Islamic financial industry. Published in cooperation with the Islamic Research and Training Institute (IRTI), this book features contributions from a workshop presented in collaboration with the University College of Bahrain (UCB) in Manama, Bahrain, aimed to bring together experts in Islamic banking and regulation and financial economics. This resulting book sheds light on how macroprudential policy may be implemented in the Islamic financial system, and indicates current challenges and their effects on economic growth, financial stability and monetary regulation. Macroprudential policy is increasingly seen as a way of dealing with the different dimensions of systemic risk. But many central banks, bank supervisors and regulators have limited experience with macroprudential tools, particularly in the Islamic financial industry. Given the complementarities between monetary policy and financial stability, it appears that central banks would always play an important role in macroprudential policy. But how should macroprudential policy best interact with monetary policy? It is becoming more pressing for the central banks to conduct monetary policy in which its conventional banking system operates side by side with Islamic banking system. This question has received increasing attention in the research literature but there is much we still need to learn. This is why new insights from research on macroprudential policy - which has gained important impetus in recent years - are so valuable. Featuring contributions on topics such as macroprudential regulation, policy, tools and instruments; governance, systematic risk, monetary policy, and bank leverage, the editors provide a collection of comprehensive research covering the most important issues on macroprudential policy and regulation for the Islamic financial industry. This volume is expected to be a significant contribution to the literature in the field of Islamic finance and evaluation of public policies to promote the development for Islamic financial industry. It is also served as a key text for students, academics, researchers, policy-makers in the field of Islamic finance.

Since the outbreak of the US subprime crisis in 2007, financial stability has become a pressing item in the agenda of governments and policy-makers worldwide. However, to date, there are no books that provide a comprehensive analysis of financial stability in all of its dimensions. Understanding Financial Stability undertakes an in-depth analysis of all the concepts and issues related to financial stability. It establishes a general framework for a holistic assessment of financial stability, provides a comprehensive analysis pertaining to the genesis of financial crises, and offers key terms and elements embodied in financial stability. Posing the question of whether financial stability should rely only on resilience or predictability issues when it comes to handling crises, the book provides: * Extensive coverage of all key issues involved in the field of financial stability. * A consideration of the political economy. * A complete and in-depth assessment of crises in the world based on full historical coverage; including a definition of crises, various theories of crises, costs related to crises, types of crises and policy responses to crises. This book will prove valuable to central bankers, economists, and policy-makers who are involved in the field of financial stability, as well as researchers studying the field.

This book focuses on how religion-particularly Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and, to a lesser extent, Hinduism-is shaping the ethos and daily actions of market participants within the global money markets. The concepts inherent within Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Hinduism are making themselves felt within the global money markets. As Islamic finance led to the introduction of sharia compliant derivatives, for example, Christian investment funds are leading ethical initiatives on Wall Street, the City of London, and elsewhere such as divesting from fossil fuels in response to the climate change emergency. Jewish faith led funds are making significant strides with the further development of impact investments. The concept of Hindu economics is also beginning to shape the actions of some market participants which are tied to the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi.

This book provides an introduction to the use of statistical concepts and methods to model and analyze financial data. The ten chapters of the book fall naturally into three sections. Chapters 1 to 3 cover some basic concepts of finance, focusing on the properties of returns on an asset. Chapters 4 through 6 cover aspects of portfolio theory and the methods of estimation needed to implement that theory. The remainder of the book, Chapters 7 through 10, discusses several models for financial data, along with the implications of those models for portfolio theory and for understanding the properties of return data. The audience for the book is students majoring in Statistics and Economics as well as in quantitative fields such as Mathematics and Engineering. Readers are assumed to have some background in statistical methods along with courses in multivariate calculus and linear algebra.

Recently, students and scholars have expressed dissatisfaction with the current state of economics and have called for the reintroduction of historical perspectives into economic thinking. Supporting the idea that fruitful lessons can be drawn from the work of past economists, this volume brings together an international cross section of leading economists and historians of economic thought to reflect on the crucial role that money, crises and finance play in the economy. The book draws on the work of economists throughout history to consider afresh themes such as financial and real explanations of economic crises, the role of central banks, and the design of macroeconomic policies. These themes are all central to the work of Maria Cristina Marcuzzo, and the contributions both reflect on and further her research agenda. This book will be of interest to researchers in the history of economic thought, and those who wish to gain a deeper understanding of the variety and diversity in approaches to economic ideas throughout history.

McClean argues that a collective move towards stewardship within the financial industry is necessary to restore ethical behaviour and public confidence. Drawing on practical examples and offering new policy recommendations, this unique philosophical study paints a picture of what a truly ethical trading culture of the future might look like.

Kirk Harrison Taitt examines the threat money laundering and terrorist financing pose to Caribbean island nations involved in international financial services, the role of compliance regimes in averting sanctions and the future of these nations at the table of global capital. He addresses and, indeed, positions island nations in a strategic space outside the global clamour, unceasing debate and severe criticism over their bona-fides/qualifications to engage in the trillion-dollar industry of offshore finance, alongside their G20 nemeses. He asserts a high ground (ethical) approach as essential to counteracting potential reputational harm. Throughout the book, Taitt weaves a governance, risk and compliance (GRC) thread in order to speak directly to practitioners and to demonstrate how a strong GRC paradigm at the jurisdictional and institutional levels could be leveraged for competitive advantage. Among the key recommendations outlined in his IRIE Mitigation Matrix are: effective regulatory governance of the jurisdiction's financial system by ensuring conformance with international standards, the deployment of sufficient resources to adequately supervise financial institutions and the promotion of values-based decision-making amongst corporate financial managers and leaders. He also recommends on-going engagement of the wider civil society to ensure present and future generations of the Caribbean island financial centre (IFC) workforce appreciate the value of personal moral excellence in business and its inextricable link to sustainable development of the IFC sector.

This two volume Handbook contains chapters on the main areas to which Post-Keynesians have made sustained and important contributions. These include theories of accumulation, distribution, pricing, money and finance, international trade and capital flows, the environment, methodological issues, criticism of mainstream economics and Post-Keynesian policies. The Introduction outlines what is in the two volumes, in the process placing Post-Keynesian procedures and contributions in appropriate contexts.

This book, Introduction to Islamic Banking and Finance: An Economic Analysis, covers the basic principles of Islamic economics and finance. It discusses both the theory of Islamic economics and finance as well as the applications in the design of instruments of finance as well as Islamic financial institutions. The book enables its readers to gain an understanding of the structures and operations of Islamic banking, Islamic capital market investments, risk management, and taxation for Islamic banking contracts. The book sets forth the following objectives: An overview of the principles of Islamic economics and understand their contrast with mainstream economics. An overview of basic rules of commercial law in Islamic jurisprudence. An overview of basic principles, structures and operations of Islamic banking both in the liability side and asset side operations. An understanding of Islamic capital market instruments and investment management including some unique activities peculiar to Islamic investments, such as stock screening and income purification. An illustration of different Takaful structures, which are applied for risk management by individuals and corporates. Supplementary materials are available to instructors who adopt this textbook for their courses. These include: Testbank PowerPoint Slides Self-Assessment Questions (SAQ) Answer Key

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.

Based on interdisciplinary research into "Directional Change", a new data-driven approach to financial data analysis, Detecting Regime Change in Computational Finance: Data Science, Machine Learning and Algorithmic Trading applies machine learning to financial market monitoring and algorithmic trading. Directional Change is a new way of summarising price changes in the market. Instead of sampling prices at fixed intervals (such as daily closing in time series), it samples prices when the market changes direction ("zigzags"). By sampling data in a different way, this book lays out concepts which enable the extraction of information that other market participants may not be able to see. The book includes a Foreword by Richard Olsen and explores the following topics: Data science: as an alternative to time series, price movements in a market can be summarised as directional changes Machine learning for regime change detection: historical regime changes in a market can be discovered by a Hidden Markov Model Regime characterisation: normal and abnormal regimes in historical data can be characterised using indicators defined under Directional Change Market Monitoring: by using historical characteristics of normal and abnormal regimes, one can monitor the market to detect whether the market regime has changed Algorithmic trading: regime tracking information can help us to design trading algorithms It will be of great interest to researchers in computational finance, machine learning and data science. About the Authors Jun Chen received his PhD in computational finance from the Centre for Computational Finance and Economic Agents, University of Essex in 2019. Edward P K Tsang is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Essex, where he co-founded the Centre for Computational Finance and Economic Agents in 2002.

From a historical point of view, the main activity of investment banks is what today we call security underwriting. Investment banks buy securities, such as bonds and stocks, from an issuer and then sell them to the ?nal investors. In the eighteenth century, the main securities were bonds issued by governments. The way these bonds were priced and placed is extraordinarily similar to the system that inve- ment banks still use nowadays. When a government wanted to issue new bonds, it negotiated with a few prominent "middlemen" (today we would call them investment bankers). The middlemen agreed to take a fraction of the bonds: they accepted to do so only after having canvassed a list of people they could rely upon. The people on the list were the ?nal investors. The middlemen negotiated with the government even after the issuance. Indeed, in those days governments often changed unilaterally the bond conditions and being on the list of an important middleman could make the difference. On the other hand, middlemen with larger lists were considered to be in a better bargaining position. This game was repeated over time, and hence, reputation mattered. For the middlemen, being trusted by both the investors on the list and by the issuing governments was crucial.

This book presents the development and reformation of economic law in China and explores the "three relationships" between the government and market, between reform and rule of law, and between the constitution and economic law. On this basis, it subsequently focuses on development theory, distribution theory, risk theory and crisis theory. Further, it addresses effective development, fair distribution, and prevention and resolution of related risks and crises, which are important functions of economic law. In order to achieve the above functions and objectives, the book argues, we must vigorously promote the integration of rule of law in economic law, and constantly refine the theory of economic rule of law employed in China.The book demonstrates that no matter how the "three major relationships" are adjusted or the relevant systems are reformed - i.e., regarding the implementation of the concept of coordinated development or the optimization of economic structures; the solution of distribution problems or the improvement of distribution systems; the prevention of risks or the response to crises - any such changes depend on economic rule of law. The above-mentioned theoretical discussion presents a "new horizon" of contemporary Chinese economic law theory, which will be of great value to the future development of economic law theory.

Microcredit took the development world by storm as a tool for poverty alleviation in the 1980s. After being hailed as a panacea, a few decades on it started being forcefully criticised based on its practice. This book explores Akhuwat (literally brotherhood), a rapidly growing Pakistani NGO formed in 2001, which addresses the shortcomings of conventional microfinance. Its vision is of a society built on empathy and social solidarity and its mission is that of creating self-sufficiency among the entrepreneurial poor. This book examines whether Akhuwat fulfils its promises of not pushing loans or encouraging clients to get on a debt treadmill and helping them to avoid high debt burdens by charging no interest and easing repayment terms. Conventional microcredit organizations are criticised for losing sight of the original mission of poverty alleviation by engaging in empire building and Akhuwat's goal is to avoid this by embracing an alternative strategy of scaling up. Finally, this book also analyses Akhuwat's approach as being gender sensitive and embracing all religions, castes and ethnicities. Based on fieldwork designed to assess if Akhuwat is the microcredit alternative it claims to be, this book will be of interest to scholars of poverty and development studies in general and microcredit in particular.

This book explores contemporary empirical issues in Islamic economics. It begins by outlining current trends in Islamic economics and before identifying gaps in the empirical research. It then goes on to discuss the role of institutions in economic growth for Islamic countries, and the fiscal aspects of Islamic economics. It explores issues in debt and growth, as well as the instruments of monetary management in Islamic economics. It analyses the trade-off between growth and stability and concludes with discussion of Zakat and Waqf in driving growth.

Why are financial prices so much more crisis-prone and unstable than real economy prices? Because they are doing different things. Unlike real economy prices, rooted in the real goods and services produced and exchanged, financial prices attempt to value future income flows from financial and capital assets. These valuations fluctuate erratically because expectations of the future fluctuate - and large liquid financial markets can amplify, rather than correct, these effects. The book builds on the insights of economists Frank Knight and John Maynard Keynes, that uncertainty of the future is essential to understand the processes of economic production and capital investment, and adds to this Karl Popper's general explanation of how expectations of an uncertain future are formed and tested through a trial and error process. Rather than relying on fluctuating financial prices to provide a guide to an uncertain future, it suggests a better approach would be to adopt the methods common to other branches of science, and create testable (falsifiable) theories allowing reasonable predictions to be made. In finance, the elements of one such theory could be based on the concept of forecasting yield from capital assets, which is a measurable phenomenon tending towards aggregate and long-term stability, and where there is a plentiful supply of historic data. By methods like this, financial economics could become a branch of science like any other. To buttress this approach, the widely accepted public policy objective of promoting real economy price stability could be widened to include financial price stability.

Millionaire Within pulls back the curtain, giving you a front-row view of online entrepreneur E. Brian Rose's journey to becoming a self-made millionaire. Rose details the simple steps he took to make a fortune on the Internet. These tales of failure and success will motivate you to jump in and start your own journey. "Millionaire Within is a book every entrepreneur needs to read. E. Brian Rose does a fantastic job taking you through the 'real' world of business building. And of course all roads lead to the Internet. You either understand online marketing or you are walking dead, but just don't know it yet." -Wayne Allyn Root Bestselling author of "The Power of RELENTLESS" Former Vice Presidential nominee & National Media Personality Founder of WayneRoot.com, RelentlessROOT.com, ROOTforAmerica.com and WinningEDGE.com "Engaging... Intriguing... E. Brian Rose is masterful at mixing stories with teaching concepts. This book reads like a Hollywood movie!" -James Malinchak Featured on ABCs Hit TV Show, "Secret Millionaire" Author of the Top-Selling Book, Millionaire Success Secrets Founder, BigMoneySpeaker.com