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Books > Money & Finance > General
Game Theory and Exercises introduces the main concepts of game theory, along with interactive exercises to aid readers' learning and understanding. Game theory is used to help players understand decision-making, risk-taking and strategy and the impact that the choices they make have on other players; and how the choices of those players, in turn, influence their own behaviour. So, it is not surprising that game theory is used in politics, economics, law and management. This book covers classic topics of game theory including dominance, Nash equilibrium, backward induction, repeated games, perturbed strategie s, beliefs, perfect equilibrium, Perfect Bayesian equilibrium and replicator dynamics. It also covers recent topics in game theory such as level-k reasoning, best reply matching, regret minimization and quantal responses. This textbook provides many economic applications, namely on auctions and negotiations. It studies original games that are not usually found in other textbooks, including Nim games and traveller's dilemma. The many exercises and the inserts for students throughout the chapters aid the reader's understanding of the concepts. With more than 20 years' teaching experience, Umbhauer's expertise and classroom experience helps students understand what game theory is and how it can be applied to real life examples. This textbook is suitable for both undergraduate and postgraduate students who study game theory, behavioural economics and microeconomics.
The financial systems in most developed countries today build up a large amount of model risk on a daily basis. However, this is not particularly visible as the financial risk management agenda is still dominated by the subprime-liquidity crisis, the sovereign crises, and other major political events. Losses caused by model risk are hard to identify and even when they are internally identified, as such, they are most likely to be classified as normal losses due to market evolution.Model Risk in Financial Markets: From Financial Engineering to Risk Management seeks to change the current perspective on model innovation, implementation and validation. This book presents a wide perspective on model risk related to financial markets, running the gamut from financial engineering to risk management, from financial mathematics to financial statistics. It combines theory and practice, both the classical and modern concepts being introduced for financial modelling. Quantitative finance is a relatively new area of research and much has been written on various directions of research and industry applications. In this book the reader gradually learns to develop a critical view on the fundamental theories and new models being proposed.
This book analyses how financial elites in key dollar-holding emerging markets perceive the contest between the euro and the dollar for global currency status. It also assesses how far the Eurozone has gone in challenging US hegemony in monetary affairs through the prism of these elites. Drawing on Chartalist and Constructivist theories of money, the author provides a systematic approach to studying global currency dynamics and presents extensive original empirical data on financial elites in China, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Brazil. The author demonstrates, amongst other things, how the gradual ascendance of a structurally flawed currency like the euro has highlighted the weaknesses of the dollar ad how the euro has demonstrated that sovereignty sharing in monetary affairs is possible and that the international monetary system can be a multicurrency and multilateral system. In this highly innovative and important book, Otero-Iglesias shows the importance of studying financial elites in Brazil, China and the GCC countries in order to understand the full impact, material and ideational, of the euro in the transformation of the IMS. It will be vital reading for students and scholars of International Political Economy, International Economics, International Finance, Economic History, Economic Sociology, International Relations, Comparative Political Economy and Comparative Politics.
Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century reached the top of most best-seller lists last year shortly after it was released. Nonetheless, few people actually read the book. Yet reviewers have agreed that the book is important because it touches on one of the major problems facing the US economy, the UK economy and many developed nations: rising income and wealth inequality. It also provides an explanation of the problem and a policy solution: a global wealth tax. This book is intended to do three things. First, it provides a summary of the argument of Piketty's book, which many people have bought and few people have read. Second, it fills in some of the gaps in the book, by providing readers with the background that is needed to understand the volume and the argument. This background information discusses economic data sources, measures of inequality and why income inequality is such an important issue today. Finally, the work provides a defense of Piketty's analysis and at times some criticism of his work. Pressman explains why the problem of rising inequality is important, where Piketty's data comes from, and the strengths and weaknesses of that data. It defends Piketty's inequality, r>g, as the reason inequality has risen over the past several decades in many developed nations. Using Piketty's own data, this book argues that rising inequality is not just a characteristic of capitalism, but results from different growth rates for income and wealth, which can occur under any type of economic system. Understanding Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century is the ideal introduction to one of the most important books of recent years for anyone interested in Piketty's work and the inevitability of inequality.
Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century reached the top of most best-seller lists last year shortly after it was released. Nonetheless, few people actually read the book. Yet reviewers have agreed that the book is important because it touches on one of the major problems facing the US economy, the UK economy and many developed nations: rising income and wealth inequality. It also provides an explanation of the problem and a policy solution: a global wealth tax. This book is intended to do three things. First, it provides a summary of the argument of Piketty's book, which many people have bought and few people have read. Second, it fills in some of the gaps in the book, by providing readers with the background that is needed to understand the volume and the argument. This background information discusses economic data sources, measures of inequality and why income inequality is such an important issue today. Finally, the work provides a defense of Piketty's analysis and at times some criticism of his work. Pressman explains why the problem of rising inequality is important, where Piketty's data comes from, and the strengths and weaknesses of that data. It defends Piketty's inequality, r>g, as the reason inequality has risen over the past several decades in many developed nations. Using Piketty's own data, this book argues that rising inequality is not just a characteristic of capitalism, but results from different growth rates for income and wealth, which can occur under any type of economic system. Understanding Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century is the ideal introduction to one of the most important books of recent years for anyone interested in Piketty's work and the inevitability of inequality.
This is the first systematic attempt to explore the causal relationship between financial market reform and financial crisis in an interdisciplinary and comparative perspective. It examines the political underpinnings of financial policy-change and provides an in-depth analysis of market liberalisation processes and their impact on the economic turmoil of 1997-98 in Korea and Thailand. The common crisis stemmed from divergent reform patterns and originated from dissimilar institutional deficiencies and political constraints. The book will be essential reading for both policy-makers and academics concerned with national governance in an era of globalisation.
What happens to risk as the economic horizon goes to zero and risk is seen as an exposure to a change in state that may occur instantaneously at any time? All activities that have been undertaken statically at a fixed finite horizon can now be reconsidered dynamically at a zero time horizon, with arrival rates at the core of the modeling. This book, aimed at practitioners and researchers in financial risk, delivers the theoretical framework and various applications of the newly established dynamic conic finance theory. The result is a nonlinear non-Gaussian valuation framework for risk management in finance. Risk-free assets disappear and low risk portfolios must pay for their risk reduction with negative expected returns. Hedges may be constructed to enhance value by exploiting risk interactions. Dynamic trading mechanisms are synthesized by machine learning algorithms. Optimal exposures are designed for option positioning simultaneously across all strikes and maturities.
Turkey could be considered the most important and leading Islamic country that has implemented the Western economic model successfully mostly because of the modernization efforts since late Ottoman period. As a result of the secularization efforts in the field of economy in early republican era, Muslim people in the country had to deal with non-Islamic practices that contradict with their religious beliefs. Islamic Finance Alternatives for Emerging Economies analyzes the emergence of the Islamic financial institutions in Turkey, by taking into account their history, their operational model, and their legal regulations in the financial field, to discuss the future of Islamic finance. The contributors also consider the ability of Islamic financial institutions and tools to respond to the financial needs of Muslims.
Microfinance has experienced dynamic development. Today, microfinance providers reach close to 100 million clients worldwide and are growing fast. New partnerships expand the impact of microfinance even further. Three types of partnerships are examined in this book, each consisting of a thematic pillar. Pillar I focuses on equity investments in microfinance, especially the possibilities for engaging private investors through structured microfinance investment funds. Rating agencies are involved in providing more transparency in this emerging fund industry. Pillar II focuses on collaboration among microfinance providers, governments, private investors and technology companies which help microfinance institutions to integrate new technologies into their business models, reducing cost and increasing outreach to clients. Pillar III covers micropensions, microinsurance and the role of securitisation for the future of microfinance.
We have experienced an era of extreme anti-inflationary policy combined with debts and deficits, the result of which has been a decrease in social stability. This book examines how using mainstream theory as the basis for economic decisions leads to misunderstandings of central concepts of our economic reality. It aims to establish a better understanding of the discrepancies between the current mainstream economic theory and the economy experienced in business and politics. This ambitious and wide-ranging volume begins the project of rethinking the approach of economics to money. In this new light, concepts such as valuation, price, uncertainty, growth and aggregation are interpreted differently, even as analytical inconsistencies and even intrinsic contradictions between these concepts arise. A central theme of the book is the use of money as a measure and whether the disconnect between money as a form of measurement and money as it is used in the real world can be maintained. This book calls for a radical rethinking of the basis of much of the modern study of economics. It will be of interest to researchers concerned with monetary economics, finance, political economy and economic philosophy.
This book is an introduction to financial valuation and financial data analyses using econometric methods. It is intended for advanced finance undergraduates and graduates. Most chapters in the book would contain one or more finance application examples where finance concepts, and sometimes theory, are taught.This book is a modest attempt to bring together several important domains in financial valuation theory, in econometrics modelling, and in the empirical analyses of financial data. These domains are highly intertwined and should be properly understood in order to correctly and effectively harness the power of data and statistical or econometrics methods for investment and financial decision-making.The contribution in this book, and at the same time, its novelty, is in employing materials in basic econometrics, particularly linear regression analyses, and weaving into it threads of foundational finance theory, concepts, ideas, and models. It provides a clear pedagogical approach to allow very effective learning by a finance student who wants to be well equipped in both theory and ability to research the data.This is a handy book for finance professionals doing research to easily access the key techniques in data analyses using regression methods. Students learn all 3 skills at once - finance, econometrics, and data analyses. It provides for very solid and useful learning for advanced undergraduate and graduate students who wish to work in financial analyses, risk analyses, and financial research areas.
China is now the second largest economy in the world, with an increasingly efficient and open financial system. Many firms, agents and financial institutions have realized the potential in making money in China. Financial Theory: Perspectives from China serves as a timely textbook providing a unique introduction to economics theory, with a focus on money, banking and financial systems, through examples based mainly on China's financial practices. It contains up-to-date developments of theory and practices, as well as various interesting stories on China's financial system. Topics such as financial institutions, capital markets, debt securities markets, mutual fund markets, money markets, foreign exchange and financial derivative markets are discussed in depth. Financial theories are supplemented with illustrations from China's money supply mechanism and monetary policy system, China's financial regulatory and supervision system, as well as China's financial system and how it has liberalized and opened up to the rest of the world.Readers will find detailed examinations of financial theories, exemplified and reinforced by the inclusion of different financial cases and phenomena, each intriguing in their own right. This book provides readers with a deeper understanding of China's financial practices, providing vital knowledge for investing in China and engaging businesses there. Undergraduate students in economics and finance and those keen on becoming a player in China's financial markets will no doubt find this volume useful and necessary.
Government policies, marketing campaigns of banks, insurance companies, and other financial institutions, and consumers' protective actions all depend on assumptions about consumer financial behavior. Unfortunately, many consumers have no or little knowledge of budgeting, financial products, and financial planning. It is therefore important that organizations and market authorities know why consumers spend, borrow, insure, invest, and save for their retirement - or why they do not. Understanding Consumer Financial Behavior provides a systemic economic and behavioral approach to the way people handle their finances. It discusses the different types of financial behaviors consumers may engage in and explores the psychological explanations for their behavior and choices. This exciting new book is essential reading for scholars of marketing, finance, and management; financial professionals; and consumer policy makers.
David Ricardo, one of the major figures in the history of economic thought, particularly in the English classical political economy, deployed his activities as economist just two hundreds of years ago. Since then his economics has been generally estimated as the culminating point of the classical economics, and his name and theory has been exerting an enduring influence up to the present. This book, consisting of articles contributed by historians economic thought on money and finance, intends to reappraise the Ricardo's monetary and financial thought on the occasion of its bicentenary and to offer historical clues to understanding today's world wide financial crisis. The book consists of eight chapters divided into three parts. The first part is devoted to the historical back ground of Ricardo's thought (Hume, Smith, Thornton etc). It serves to bring in relief the originality of Ricardo's thought in the historical context. The second and central part consists of four chapters discussing the most important aspects of Ricardo's monetary thought: Ricardo and quantity theory of money, the ideal monetary regime conceived by Ricardo very early in his career and matured till the last moment of his life, plan for the establishment of a national bank. In this part, the relation between the quantity of money and its value in Ricardo's theory is examined in a new light and Ricardo as a non-quantity theorist. The two chapters in the third and last part discuss the problems raised after Ricardo in relation to his monetary thought. Tracing Ricardo's economic thought to the early 19th century, this book may provide readers insight to help them understand the present day financial crises through his works.
In his debut book on trading psychology, Inside the Investor s Brain, Rich-ard Peterson demonstrated how managing emotions helps top investors outperform. Now, in Trading on Sentiment, he takes you inside the science of crowd psychol-ogy and demonstrates that not only do price patterns exist, but the most predictable ones are rooted in our shared human nature. Peterson s team developed text analysis engines to mine data - topics, beliefs, and emotions - from social media. Based on that data, they put together a market-neutral social media-based hedge fund that beat the S&P 500 by more than twenty-four percent through the 2008 financial crisis. In this groundbreaking guide, he shows you how they did it and why it worked. Applying algorithms to so-cial media data opened up an unprecedented world of insight into the elusive patterns of investor sentiment driving repeating market moves. Inside, you gain a privi-leged look at the media content that moves investors, along with time-tested techniques to make the smart moves even when it doesn t feel right. This book digs underneath technicals and fundamentals to explain the primary mover of market prices - the global information flow and how investors react to it. It provides the expert guidance you need to develop a competitive edge, manage risk, and overcome our sometimes-flawed human nature. Learn how traders are using sentiment analysis and statistical tools to extract value from media data in order to: * Foresee important price moves using an understanding of how investors process news. * Make more profitable investment decisions by identifying when prices are trending, when trends are turning, and when sharp market moves are likely to reverse. * Use media sentiment to improve value and momentum investing returns. * Avoid the pitfalls of unique price patterns found in commodities, currencies, and during speculative bubbles Trading on Sentiment deepens your understanding of markets and supplies you with the tools and techniques to beat global markets whether they re going up, down, or sideways.
Respected international experts such as Michael Bordo, Larry Sjaastad and Ken Clements are brought together in a wonderfully well researched new book on this most important of topics. This comprehensive, well-written book provides all you need to know about Gold and the Modern World Economy.
This book provides an overview of China's financial markets and their latest developments. The book explores and discusses the difficulties in building modern financial markets that are compatible with an increasingly complicated market economy and examines the various strategies to reform China's financial system. It covers a range of topics: China's financial structure, financial regulation, financial repression and liberalization, monetary policy and the People's Bank of China, banking reforms, exchange rate policy, capital control and capital-account liberalization, and development of the stock markets. The book provides a basic understanding of the current issues related to the development of China's financial markets. It enhances knowledge of China's regulatory framework which has helped to shape China's financial landscape. It provides specific, useful knowledge about investment in China, such as, market sense, to identify the investment opportunities in various asset classes.
Financial inclusion through microfinance has become a powerful force in improving the living conditions of poor farmers, rural non-farm enterprises and other vulnerable groups. In its unique ability to link the existing extensive network of India s rural bank branches with the Self Help Groups (SHG), the National Bank of Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has covered up to 97 million poor households by March 2010 under its Self Help Group Bank Linkage Programme. Policy-makers have proclaimed SHGs as the most potent initiative for delivering financial services to the poor in a sustainable manner." This book presents a comprehensive scientific assessment of the impact of the Self Help Group Bank Linkage Programme (SBLP) on the member households. The book discusses wide-ranging topics, including the rural financial sector in India, the history and structure of the SBLP, the impact methodologies, the economic and social impact of microfinance, its role in building assets while reducing poverty and vulnerability, the role of women and their empowerment, training and accumulation of human capital and policy implications of lessons learned. The empirical results show that vulnerability of the more mature SHG members declines significantly. Vulnerability also falls for villages with better infrastructure and for SHGs that are formed by NGOs and linked by banks. The results strongly demonstrate that on average, there is a significant increase in the empowerment of the female participants. The economic impact of SBLP is found to be the most empowering. Greater autonomy and changes in social attitudes also lead to female empowerment. The investigation further reveals that training (especially business training) has a definite positive impact on assets but not on income. The impact of training can be improved through better infrastructure (as in paved roads), linkage model type, and the training organiser. Bridging the gap in the existing literature and between academics and practitioners, this book moves beyond the usual theoretical issues in the impact assessment literature and draws on new developments in methodology. It will be of interest to academics, development practitioners and students of economics, political science, sociology, public policy and development studies."
First Published in 2005. This study uses the Baring archive to provide a professional and contemporary understanding of the foreign financial history of Continental Europe and the United States from the years 1815 to 1870. The material gathered in this book, for France, Russia, Austria, Spain and the United States, and the conclusions reached in all the chapters, go far towards supporting and confirming that the belief that capital exports give rise to growth is an inflated claim.
This volume takes up bankruptcy in early modern Europe, when its frequency made it not only an economic problem but a personal tragedy and a social evil. Using legal, business and personal records, the essays in this volume examine the impact of failure on business organizations and practices, capital formation and circulation, economic institutions and ethics, and human networks and relations in the so-called "transition" to modern society, from the early-sixteenth to the early-nineteenth century. One group of essays concentrates on the German-speaking world and shows a common concern for the microeconomics of bankruptcy, that is, for such issues as the structure of the firm, the nature of its capital, and the practices of its partners, especially their assessment of risk. Another group of essays shifts the focus from Central to Western and Northern Europe and away from the microeconomics of the early modern firm to an institutional consideration of bankruptcy. The final group of essays turns to Southern Europe, especially the Mediterranean basin, to assess bankruptcy not as an unfortunate result of crisis, but as an intentional response to crisis. All of the contributions are the result of original research; many of the scholars publish in English for the first time. All of the chapters are founded on close archival research, offering insights not only into business organization and practice but also into social and cultural aspects of economic life from the late sixteenth to the early nineteenth century.
Unlike other books which focus solely on the business or profit aspects of measuring the customer experience, this book focuses on the benefits to the consumer as well as the company or financial institution. The book describes how business and government can undertake market research to determine whether the credit and investment markets are functioning properly and providing consumers with adequate information to make sound and safe credit and investment decisions. A discussion of different market research methods abilities to uncover problems in the credit and investment markets is provided. Findings and trends from studies measuring the customers experience in the credit and investment markets during the 1991 - 2009 time periods are discussed along with regulatory guidelines and consumer protection laws. The methodologies used to measure the customer experience and detect misleading sales practices; unfair treatment and discrimination in the financial services market place are described in detail. The techniques of mystery shopping, matched pair testing and consumer surveys are described along with a detailed discussion of study design, data collection methods, sample size determination, statistical testing, reporting and analysis. Sample questionnaires, mystery shop scenarios and profiles and sample analyses and charts are provided.
Generally thought to be an under-regulated sector, the shadow banking system has been identified as having a significant role in the recent global financial crisis. In recent years, it has also been growing rapidly in emerging markets. Yet, little is known about its size, scope and operations; nor its benefits and costs to society. Shadow Banking Within and Across National Borders consists of a proceedings of a conference held at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, in November 2013. Edited by Stijn Claessens, Douglas Evanoff, George Kaufman and Luc Laeven, this volume brings together leading industry scholars to examine various aspects of the shadow banking system. The contributors of this volume debate issues which include defining and quantifying shadow banking; the causes of the development of the sector; its role in the recent financial crisis; the implications for financial stability; the social benefits of the sector; the associated challenges for financial supervision and regulation; and alternative policy options to address problems created by the sector.
Substantially revised and updated, this fourth edition of The UK financial system presents a comprehensive explanation of the workings of the institutions and markets making up the UK financial system. It also presents some key theoretical developments such as asymmetric information, the efficient markets hypothesis, behavioral economics and the term structure of interest rates, providing an analytical framework to aid understanding of the institutional structure. Recent changes covered include; the new framework for prudential regulation of the financial system with the new single regulator, the Financial Services Authority, the new framework for the operation of UK monetary policy and a comparison with the operations of the European Central Bank, the Cruickshank review of Banking Competition and the Myners review of institutional investment, global stock markets and the 'technology bubble' of the late 1990s, new developments in derivative markets and Basel II - the proposed capital adequacy accord. Several case studies are provided throughout the book examining the failure of various financial firms and the lessons that can be learned from them, including Equitable Life. Barings
As a government institution specializing in development-oriented finance, the China Development Bank (CDB) has combined advanced international financial theories with China's practical conditions and has done remarkably well in removing financing bottlenecks, establishing market credit systems, and ensuring faster and better economic and social development. Its practice and theory in development-oriented finance represent a major distinctive feature of China's socialist market economy.Written in the setting of great history, great changes and great challenges, this book contains a systematic study of the theory and practice of development-oriented finance that has evolved along with China's reform and opening up. It provides an in-depth analysis of the ideological basis, theoretical contents, operating principles and innovative development of China's financial system.China's Rise: Development-Oriented Finance and Sustainable Development will promote further discussions and researches on China's modern economic and financial systems and in turn the sustainable development of the Chinese economy and the world economy at large.
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. |
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