Finance is the root of the economic systems. Positive or negative developments in the financial sector directly affect the economy of the countries. One of the fundamental components of the financial sector is the banking sector. Financial markets, which are one of the basic elements of national economies and the banking sector, form the basis of all world economies directly or indirectly. For this purpose, current affairs in both financial markets and banking sector are analysed by academicians and practitioners in different point of views.

'An Outline of Financial Economics' presents a systematic treatment of the theory and methodology of finance and economics. The book follows an analytical and geometric methodology, explaining technical terms and mathematical operations in clear, nontechnical language, and providing intuitive explanations of the mathematical results. The text begins with a discussion of financial instruments, which form the basis of finance theory, and goes on to analyze bonds - which are regarded as fixed income securities - in a simple framework and to discuss the valuation of stocks and cash flows in detail. Highly relevant topics such as attitudes toward risk, uncertainty, financial structure of a firm, stochastic dominance, portfolio management, option pricing and conditions for non-arbitrage are analyzed explicitly. Because of its wide coverage and analytical, articulate and authoritative presentation, 'An Outline of Financial Economics' will be an indispensable book for finance researchers and undergraduate and graduate students in fields such as economics, finance, econometrics, statistics and mathematics.

This book focuses on the impact of the disclosure of non-financial risk, which could be seen as the most relevant non-financial information (NFI), in the aftermath of the 2014/95/EU Directive. The author analyses whether the switch from voluntary to mandatory NFI enhance the quality of disclosed NF risk-related information and the usefulness of the risk disclosure for investors. The book focuses specifically on the mandatory disclosure of non-financial (NF) risks as required by the EU Directive for listed Italian companies, investigating both the state of art of its disclosure and its usefulness for investors. In doing so, the book contributes to fill two relevant gaps in risk literature. The first research gap is related to the insufficient investigation of the disclosure of NF risks. Companies mandated to disclose risk-related information focused mainly on financial risks, in spite of the width of the definition of risk, conceived as information about any opportunity, danger, threat, or exposure that has or could impact the company in the future. The second gap is that empirical evidence about the effects of corporate risk disclosures is still limited, and the potential benefits of the disclosure of information on risks have not been fully explored. In particular, the relationship between risk disclosures and firm value is under researched, as the risk literature mainly focuses on the incentives question, related to the motives for which companies decide to disclose. The research in this book focuses on Italy, a country that provides a unique opportunity to examine the impact of mandatory NF risk disclosure on firm market value, being one of the biggest industrial European countries that had not mandatory legislation for NFI disclosure, and also one of the leading countries in voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting at an international level. It has been carried out in the fiscal year 2017, the first year of the application of the mandatory NF disclosure for obliged Italian listed PIEs. The book contributes both to the measurement literature, as it presents a self-constructed quality NF risks and to the value relevance analysis literature, providing evidence of the usefulness of financial and non-financial risk-related disclosures in the Italian context.

Post-reform India has seen a decline in agricultural growth as well as supply demand imbalance and rising prices. This book presents a comprehensive analysis of domestic and international prices and trade since 1980 81, covering the past quarter of a century. Backed with rich data, it provides comparisons between the pre- and post-liberalisation po

This book discusses women-oriented microfinance initiatives in India and their articulation vis-is state developmentalism and contemporary neo-liberal capitalism. It examines how these initiatives encourage economically disadvantaged rural women to make claims upon state-provided microcredit and connect with multiple state institutions and agencie

This book provides an in-depth overview of the most salient aspects of development finance. It critically reviews the current state of relevant literature on this topic and assesses both the challenges and the opportunities presented by the various forms of finance for development. Chapters from expert contributors examine a range of topics from the link between finance and growth and finance and misallocation, the relationship between financial illiteracy and lack of legal titles on access to finance, to the role of governments in the financial system and the role of overseas development assistance, remittances, microfinance, foreign direct investment (FDI) and stock exchanges on development. This book offers a good point of reference for postgraduate and PhD students and will appeal to researchers in this field.

Volume 4 in this research series contains nine papers. Following the tradition of the earlier volumes, it is similar in style to the first three volumes and illustrates ongoing research thrusts on a variety of financial economics issues that are germane to working capital management. The papers have been logically divided into three parts.

The first part of the volume focuses on the issues covering short-term interest rates, short-term financial management, and a cash balance model. Part two contains papers that examine the issue of trade credit analysis under a competitive pricing situation and an environment in which the level of sales fluctuates. Finally Part 3 departs from the traditional discussions on working capital management in that it explores dividend payouts and tax environment changes as a source of concern to treasury (and financial) managers.

This fourth volume presents a rich variety of papers that address an expanding facet of working capital management. It is hoped that the papers are found to be informative and act to stimulate research and practice in the area of treasury/financial management.

This book presents the comparative evaluation of international and industrial factors affecting the financial condition of enterprises. In the theoretical part, the results of previous research on the occurrence of the country and industry effect in the financial health of companies are reviewed. The aim of the empirical study is to determine such factors - national or industrial ones - that have a greater impact on the corporate performance in the selected European Union countries. Corporate performance is measured and described with the use of a large set of fundamental ratios. Corporate performance is therefore treated as a more complex matter influenced by such aspects as profitability, liquidity, working capital and solvency. The book especially analyses the importance of non-public companies of all sizes, which is also rare as current research focuses mainly on public companies due to the data constraints.

Who decides how official statistics are produced? Do politicians have control or are key decisions left to statisticians in independent statistical agencies? Interviews with statisticians in Australia, Canada, Sweden, the UK and the USA were conducted to get insider perspectives on the nature of decision making in government statistical administration. While the popular adage suggests there are 'lies, damned lies and statistics', this research shows that official statistics in liberal democracies are far from mistruths; they are consistently insulated from direct political interference. Yet, a range of subtle pressures and tensions exist that governments and statisticians must manage. The power over statistics is distributed differently in different countries, and this book explains why. Differences in decision-making powers across countries are the result of shifting pressures politicians and statisticians face to be credible, and the different national contexts that provide distinctive institutional settings for the production of government numbers.

Since the groundbreaking research of Harry Markowitz into the application of operations research to the optimization of investment portfolios, finance has been one of the most important areas of application of operations research. The use of hidden Markov models (HMMs) has become one of the hottest areas of research for such applications to finance. This handbook offers systemic applications of different methodologies that have been used for decision making solutions to the financial problems of global markets. As the follow-up to the authors' Hidden Markov Models in Finance (2007), this offers the latest research developments and applications of HMMs to finance and other related fields. Amongst the fields of quantitative finance and actuarial science that will be covered are: interest rate theory, fixed-income instruments, currency market, annuity and insurance policies with option-embedded features, investment strategies, commodity markets, energy, high-frequency trading, credit risk, numerical algorithms, financial econometrics and operational risk. Hidden Markov Models in Finance: Further Developments and Applications, Volume II presents recent applications and case studies in finance and showcases the formulation of emerging potential applications of new research over the book's 11 chapters. This will benefit not only researchers in financial modeling, but also others in fields such as engineering, the physical sciences and social sciences. Ultimately the handbook should prove to be a valuable resource to dynamic researchers interested in taking full advantage of the power and versatility of HMMs in accurately and efficiently capturing many of the processes in the financial market.

'Dennis BuchananaEURO (TM)s text clearly shows how an understanding of the complementary disciplines of geoscience, conventional engineering and advanced financial engineering is essential to making the right decisions concerning how to appraise a resource or project and how to structure the funding of natural resources assets in order to mitigate technical and financial risk and to maximise value for owners. Crucially, the book also looks at how other sources of capital, such as limited recourse lenders, appraise metals and energy assets. Such an understanding is essential to optimising the capital structure and valuation of natural resources assets ... The advanced methodologies revealed in Dennis BuchananaEURO (TM)s book will have great value to those working in the technical and financial functions, or to those spanning both functions, of the natural resources industry. 'Mineral EconomicsGiven the design component it involves, financial engineering should be considered equal to conventional engineering. By adopting this complementary approach, financial models can be used to identify how and why timing is critical in optimizing return on investment and to demonstrate how financial engineering can enhance returns to investors. Metals and Energy Finance capitalizes on this approach, and identifies and examines the investment opportunities offered across the extractive industry's cycle, from exploration through evaluation, pre-production development, development and production. The textbook also addresses the similarities of a range of natural resource projects, whether minerals or petroleum, while at the same time identifying their key differences.This new edition has been comprehensively revised with a new chapter on Quantitative Finance and three additional case studies. Contemporary themes in the revised edition include the current focus on the transition from open pit to underground mining as well as the role of real option valuations applied to marginal projects that may have value in the future.This innovative textbook is clear and concise in its approach. Both authors have extensive experience within the academic environment at a senior level as well as track records of hands-on participation in projects within the natural resources and financial services sectors. Metals and Energy Finance will be invaluable to both professionals and graduate students working in the field of mineral and petroleum business management.

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.

Exchanges play an essential and central role in the world's economy. They epitomize transparency in the price-formation process, informing investors and disseminating vital information for the functioning of financial markets, and in so doing they represent an important source of capital for nascent and established companies alike. Even during the recent crisis, exchanges remained open and liquid in the face of extreme volatility-thus the trust investors place in regulated exchanges when confronted with uncertainty is beyond doubt.
Since the inception of the World Federation of Exchanges in the 1960s, the operational and competitive landscape for organized exchanges has changed radically. Technology and globalization have allowed financial flows to move freely across borders, and burgeoning competition and lower regulatory barriers have spurred far-reaching transformations in the way securities are traded.
Against this background, and on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the World Federation of Exchanges, the WFE has partnered with Larry Harris and the Centre for European Policy Studies to produce a definitive volume of essays to take a look at the historic role exchanges have played in the global economy, highlighting pivotal innovations that shaped this role, and to lay out prospective ways in which exchanges will continue to shape the global economy in the future. Opening with key conceptual essays by leading academics, Regulated Exchanges examines the historical contribution of exchanges to the world's economic growth, exchanges' economic importance, and the regulatory characteristics of the space in which exchanges operate. The volume then presents essays on several defining milestones in the history of exchanges written by leading figures that took part in that very history, showing the interaction between the founding of exchanges, local cultures, and world financial markets. The book appropriately closes with a look forward, examining the competitive landscape and the exciting and promising future of regulated exchanges.
Offering an unparalleled collection of perspectives from leading academics and practitioners involved in the history of exchanges, Regulated Exchanges sheds a brilliant and welcome light on how exchanges have influenced and fostered successful financial markets, and how they will do so for many years to come.

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.

Liquid markets generate hundreds or thousands of ticks (the minimum change in price a security can have, either up or down) every business day. Data vendors such as Reuters transmit more than 275,000 prices per day for foreign exchange spot rates alone. Thus, high-frequency data can be a fundamental object of study, as traders make decisions by observing high-frequency or tick-by-tick data. Yet most studies published in financial literature deal with low frequency, regularly spaced data. For a variety of reasons, high-frequency data are becoming a way for understanding market microstructure. This book discusses the best mathematical models and tools for dealing with such vast amounts of data.
This book provides a framework for the analysis, modeling, and inference of high frequency financial time series. With particular emphasis on foreign exchange markets, as well as currency, interest rate, and bond futures markets, this unified view of high frequency time series methods investigates the price formation process and concludes by reviewing techniques for constructing systematic trading models for financial assets.

A groundbreaking look at complexity theory and its implications in the world of finance
Complexity theory tells us that processes with a large number of seemingly independent agents-such as free markets-can spontaneously organize themselves into a coherent system. In this fascinating book, Edgar Peters brings together scientific theory, the artistic process, and economics to show how the randomness and uncertainty of complexity theory can be applied to financial markets. Written in an engaging and accessible style, this is a thoughtful, conceptual look at the way free markets are, by their nature, continually evolving complex systems. Expanding on previous explorations of chaos theory, Peters draws on real-life examples ranging from the Asian crisis to America's love of conspiracy to show that complexity and randomness are necessary for the free markets to operate in a competitive manner.

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.

The "good life" for households has passed. The unwanted result which accompanied it is the sea of red ink. Confidence in the western way of life will not return until the current mess of a dysfunctional society, and its economy, is cleared out. Household Finance explains why and how this can be done.

'Dennis BuchananaEURO (TM)s text clearly shows how an understanding of the complementary disciplines of geoscience, conventional engineering and advanced financial engineering is essential to making the right decisions concerning how to appraise a resource or project and how to structure the funding of natural resources assets in order to mitigate technical and financial risk and to maximise value for owners. Crucially, the book also looks at how other sources of capital, such as limited recourse lenders, appraise metals and energy assets. Such an understanding is essential to optimising the capital structure and valuation of natural resources assets ... The advanced methodologies revealed in Dennis BuchananaEURO (TM)s book will have great value to those working in the technical and financial functions, or to those spanning both functions, of the natural resources industry. 'Mineral EconomicsGiven the design component it involves, financial engineering should be considered equal to conventional engineering. By adopting this complementary approach, financial models can be used to identify how and why timing is critical in optimizing return on investment and to demonstrate how financial engineering can enhance returns to investors. Metals and Energy Finance capitalizes on this approach, and identifies and examines the investment opportunities offered across the extractive industry's cycle, from exploration through evaluation, pre-production development, development and production. The textbook also addresses the similarities of a range of natural resource projects, whether minerals or petroleum, while at the same time identifying their key differences.This new edition has been comprehensively revised with a new chapter on Quantitative Finance and three additional case studies. Contemporary themes in the revised edition include the current focus on the transition from open pit to underground mining as well as the role of real option valuations applied to marginal projects that may have value in the future.This innovative textbook is clear and concise in its approach. Both authors have extensive experience within the academic environment at a senior level as well as track records of hands-on participation in projects within the natural resources and financial services sectors. Metals and Energy Finance will be invaluable to both professionals and graduate students working in the field of mineral and petroleum business management.

Since the pioneering work of Black, Scholes, and Merton in the field of financial mathematics, research has led to the rapid development of a substantial body of knowledge, with plenty of applications to the common functioning of the world 's financial institutions.

Mathematics, as the language of science, has always played a role in the development of knowledge and technology. Presently, the high-tech character of modern business has increased the need for advanced methods, which rely to a large extent on mathematical techniques. It has become essential for the financial analyst to possess a high degree of proficiency in these mathematical techniques.

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.

This book analyses Jamaica's ability to satisfy its short and long run foreign currency obligations in light of recurrent balance of payment support from international lending agencies. Jamaica is one of the top five indebted nations in the world, and despite entering 13 successive arrangements with the International Monetary Fund over the past 40 years, its depreciating currency continues to drive up debt servicing requirements. The island nation's longstanding relationship with multilateral lending agencies like the IMF serves as a case study for other developing countries that are unable to generate sufficient intrinsic net international reserves and, consequently, suffer from incredibly low GDP growth per annum. The book closes with policy recommendations to bolster the Jamaican economy into solvency so that it can create a sustainable foreign debt repayment plan, and suggests strategies for supporting local economic objectives within global geopolitical constraints.

This book presents important aspects of the New-Keynesian theory of monetary policy and its implications for the practical decision making of central bankers today. It brings together several new research contributions that were presented at the scientific symposium on the occasion of the award of the Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics 2007 to Professor Michael Woodford of Columbia University. Woodford received this prize according to the jury in recognition of his fundamental contributions to the theory and practical analysis of monetary policy. The prize jury included Gunter Franke, Michael Haliassos, Otmar Issing, Jan Krahnen, Patrick Lane, Lucrezia Reichlin, Reinhardt Schmidt, Lars Svensson, Norbert Walter and Volker Wieland. The first part on "The New-Keynesian Approach to Understanding the Economy" contains two chapters written by Bennett McCallum and Jordi Gali, respectively. McCallum provides an exposition of key elements of the New-Keynesian approach to monetary policy analysis and an appreciation of Woodford's contributions. Gali further develops several key lessons of this approach and points out important new directions for further research.

A variety of quantitative concepts and models essential to understanding financial markets are introduced and explained in this broad overview of financial analytical tools designed for financial practitioners, advanced students, and researchers lacking a strong mathematical background. Coverage ranges from matrix mathematics and elementary calculus with their applications to portfolio and fixed income analysis to probability and stochastic processes with their applications to option pricing. The book is sequenced by mathematics topics, most of which are followed by relevant usage to areas such as valuation, risk management, derivatives, back-testing of financial models, and market efficiency.

The book begins by motivating the need for understanding quantitative technique with a brief discussion of financial mathematics and financial literature review. Preliminary concepts including geometric expansion, elementary statistics, and basic portfolio techniques are introduced in chapters 2 and 3. Chapters 4 and 5 present matrix mathematics and differential calculus applied to yield curves, APT, state preference theory, binomal option pricing, mean-variance analysis, and other applications. Integral calculus and differential equations follow in chapter 6. The rest of the book covers applications of probability, statistics and stochastic processes as well as a sampling of topics from numerical methods used in financial analysis.

Mainstream research has rationalized China's stock market on the basis of paradigms such as the institutional approach, the efficient market hypothesis, and corporate valuation principles. The deviations from such paradigms have been analyzed as puzzles of China's stock market. Girardin and Liu explore to what extent, in the perspective of Chinese cultural and historical characteristics, far from being puzzles, these 'deviations' are rather the symptoms of a consistent strategy for the design, development and regulation of a government-dominated financial system. This book will help investors, observers and researchers understand the hidden logic of the design and functioning of China's modern stock market, taking a political economy view.