Finance Capital Today is shortlisted for the The Isaac and Tamara Deutscher Memorial Prize 2017. Finance Capital Today presents a rich new analysis of the specific features of contemporary capitalism, notably its truly global nature and its financialisation, calling on Marxist analyses of the concentration, centralisation and globalisation of capital and Marx's theory of interest-bearing and fictitious capital. Chesnais shows how financial globalisation and the exponential growth of financial assets have developed alongside the globalisation of productive capital, paying special attention to the contemporary operations of transnational corporations and global oligopoly. He argues that the macroeconomic perspective is one in which large amounts of capital are looking for profitable investment in a setting of underlying overproduction and low profits. The outcome will be low global growth, repeated financial shocks and the growing interconnection between the environmental and economic crises.

This book provides researchers and scholars with a comprehensive and up-to-date analysis of earnings management theory and literature. While it raises new questions for future research, the book can be also helpful to other parties who rely on financial reporting in making decisions like regulators, policy makers, shareholders, investors, and gatekeepers e.g., auditors and analysts. The book summarizes the existing literature and provides insight into new areas of research such as the differences between earnings management, fraud, earnings quality, impression management, and expectation management; the trade-off between earnings management activities; the special measures of earnings management; and the classification of earnings management motives based on a comprehensive theoretical framework.

This book stresses the psychological perspective in explaining financial behavior. Traditionally, financial behaviors such as saving, spending, and investing have been explained using demographic and economic factors such as income and product pricing. The consequence of this way of thinking is that financial institutions view their clients mostly from the perspective of their income. By taking a psychological approach, this book stresses the perspective of consumers confronted with a quickly changing financial world: the changing of financial offers and products (savings, investments, loans), the changing of payment methods (from cash to cheques, cards and mobile payments), the accessibility and temptation of goods, and the changing of insurance and pension systems. The Psychology of Financial Consumer Behavior provides insight into the thought processes of consumers in a variety of financial topics. Coverage includes perceptions of wealth, the pleasure or pain of spending, cashless transactions, saving and investing, loans, planning for the future, taxes, and financial education. The book holds appeal for researchers, professionals, and students in economics, psychology, economic psychology, marketing and consumer science, or anyone interested in financial behaviors.

Informal finance consists of nonbank financing activities, whether conducted through family and friends, local money houses, or other types of financial associations. It has provided much-needed financing to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in particular, in the face of a tightly constrained and overburdened formal banking system. Unable to obtain a bank loan, firms have relied upon individuals and informal organizations outside of the banking system to obtain financing for their ventures or working capital (operating funds). Presently there is a scarcity of information on informal finance in China and it is expected to have a significant impact upon GDP and money supply.
This book, with contributions from leading scholars, describes the evolution, characteristics, and variation of informal finance in China from American and Chinese perspectives. Literature by Jiang Shuxia, Jiang Xuzhao, and Li Jianjun has heretofore been available only in Chinese, while work by Kellee Tsai, Jianwen Liao, Harold Welsch, David Pistrui, and Sara Hsu has been available in English. For the first time, they come together to discuss informal financing and its many aspects.
Most of the essays are based upon original survey research conducted locally, as this type of data is not normally collected by the government. The papers pioneer the description and analysis of the nuances of informal finance from several perspectives; the authors look at the social, cultural, political, and economic causes of informal finance, its many variations, and its economic, personal, and political ramifications.

For video game fans, the name Blizzard Entertainment was once synonymous with perfection. The renowned company behind classics like Diablo and World of Warcraft was known to celebrate the joy of gaming over all else. What was once two UCLA students' simple mission — to make games they wanted to play — launched an empire with thousands of employees, millions of fans, and billions of dollars.

But when Blizzard cancelled a buzzy project in 2013, it gave Bobby Kotick, the infamous CEO of corporate parent Activision, the excuse he needed to start cracking down on Blizzard's proud autonomy. Activision began invading Blizzard from the inside. Glitchy products, PR disasters, mass layoffs, and a staggering lawsuit marred the company's reputation and led to its ultimate reckoning.

Based on firsthand interviews with more than 300 current and former employees, Play Nice chronicles the creativity, frustration, beauty, and betrayal across the epic 33-year saga of Blizzard Entertainment, showing us what it really means to "bleed Blizzard blue." Full of colorful personalities and dramatic twists, this is the story of what happens when the ruthless pursuit of profit meets artistic idealism.

The first major global economic contraction of the 21st century, or the 'Great Recession', as it is more commonly known, began in December of 2007, and would prove to be one of the most catastrophic economic events in postmodern history. The bursting of the American housing bubble and the subprime mortgage crisis that followed are widely attributed as being the primary causes for this economic downturn.The content of this book presents an in-depth analysis of several of the leading causes of the subprime crisis, as well as the subsequent measures that were used to contain a widespread economic recession. It is the aim of this book to provide adequate information and tools for readers to gain insight on how we can prevent the same mistakes from happening again. This analysis also explores an interesting question when considering public policy; was the economic disaster, that ensued, caused by overzealous consumers who borrowed more than they could afford, or was it caused by institutional entities that gambled away the American economy?

The goal of Angel Financing is to get deals funded by providing useful, research-grounded, relevant, practical information to investors, entrepreneurs, and intermediaries.

This area of investment is the "pre-IPO," characterized by private placement transactions primarily equity in nature. Entrepreneurs must understand the problem, face the challenge, and possess the skills necessary to address the problem. Because their resources, time, and training are limited, entrepreneurs must understand the private placement, a unique process that demands a capitalization strategy.

Most importantly, entrepreneurs must embrace the investor perspective. In this one-of-a-kind book, Angel Financing provides a strategy that works. Hundreds of people have used the principles detailed in this book to raise millions of dollars.

The value of the angel investor, after all, can no longer be denied: Angel capital is the primary source of capital for early-stage deals. This fact alone accounts for the plethora of matching networks, seminars, and venture forums on the subject. Although the huge contribution of the angel capital market in creating jobs, expanding the tax base, and increasing our global competitiveness through technological innovation is well known, little is understood about the angel equity market and how deals really get done.

Moreover, over the last ten years, the authors have built the largest angel database in North America and interviewed thousands of investors about the nature of the pre-IPO investment process. Through their proprietary research and their comprehensive development of a typology of investors, the reader will not only be better positioned to identify and qualify investors, but will also be better sensitized to prepare the documents and the sales strategy to close their deals.

In Angel Financing, the angel investors tell their stories in their own words. The reader learns in depth about the forces that create this investment opportunity in high-risk investing. The reader journeys through the investors’ hedging strategies, risk assessments, syndication orientation, financial return expectations, deal structuring preferences, monitoring investments, harvesting returns, and realistic exit strategies.

What’s more, many investors themselves do not understand the valuation process involved in "blue sky" deals where there are no historical financials available. The valuation process is an art form in early-stage investing and for the first time it is candidly reviewed.

Even more important is the due diligence process. Angel Financing answers the most basic questions that sometimes even investors are too embarrassed to ask. So for straight talk on how to make money in this market, get the insights of the successful investors who have made millions.

In the United States, two million investors possess the discretionary net worth necessary to invest in pre-IPO private placements. Why is it that only 250,000 to 300,000 are active each year? The reason is that these investors–while interested–do not understand the process, do not understand how to find the deal, do not know how to determine which deal justifies their efforts, and do not know how to develop a hedging strategy.

Whether you are a dreamer, dream maker, or providing services to either, Angel Financing is the ultimate practical reference guide to add to your professional business development library.

GERALD A. BENJAMIN is Senior Managing Partner of International Capital Resources, a capital sourcing firm headquartered in San Francisco, California. He is the founder of the largest database of angel investors in the United States and developed the largest investor-entrepreneur matching network in North America. Mr. Benjamin is publisher of the Private Equity Review, the Executive Director of the Northern California Venture Forum, and Executive Director of the Angel Capital Summit (the largest annual angel capital conference in the United States). He is also a founding partner in Angel Lake Capital Partners, an early-stage venture capital fund specializing in medical, telecommunications, Internet and high-tech manuals.

Get the money your start-up business needs

"Finally, two experienced fundraising advisors demystify the process for entrepreneurs and individual investors. This should be required reading for ALL start-up companies because an outside capital investment is paramount to their existence." – Lori King CEO and Founder NVST.COM, Inc.

"Angel Financing presents an innovative capitalization strategy that works. Based on extensive academic research and filled with practical advice, it is an invaluable resource for all participants in the early-stage capital formation process." – E. Jeffrey Lyons Managing Director Marquette Consulting Group, Inc.

"I think Angel Financing must be read by all those looking to raise capital. It is also a great resource for those angel investors with little experience but the desire to get involved with early- stage companies." – George A. Mathews President Southwest Capital Resources, Inc.

"Angel Financing is the most comprehensive guide for private investments that I have seen. A must-read for angels and entrepreneurs!" – Jerry E. White Business Founder, Owner, and Chairman/CEO ICR Licensee

A successful financial planner is someone who does more than just crunch numbers and present an annual investment plan to clients. There is a psychological component to effective client care as well as to issues involving clients’ overall financial well-being. People skills, as well as financial planning skills, are necessary to build a successful financial planning business. This comprehensive guide teaches both new and veteran financial professionals how to relate to their clients in meaningful ways, thus growing their business by increasing the long-term retention of those clients. Offered here are insights into such issues as how to determine which clients to accept, how to propose a plan clients can use, how to tread carefully in family situations, how to develop sensitivity and communications skills, and how to work with the media and recognize the importance of building your business one lasting relationship at a time.

Karen Caplan Altfest, PhD, CFP (New York, NY), is Vice President of L. J. Altfest & Co., a financial planning and investment management firm. She is also the Director of the Financial Planning and Investments Program at the New School.

What distinguishes this book from other texts on mathematical finance is the use of both probabilistic and PDEs tools to price derivatives for both constant and stochastic volatility models, by which the reader has the advantage of computing explicitly a large number of prices for European, American and Asian derivatives.The book presents continuous time models for financial markets, starting from classical models such as Black-Scholes and evolving towards the most popular models today such as Heston and VAR.A key feature of the textbook is the large number of exercises, mostly solved, which are designed to help the reader to understand the material.The book is based on the author's lectures on topics on computational finance for senior and graduate students, delivered in USA (Princeton University and EMU), Taiwan and Kuwait. The prerequisites are an introductory course in stochastic calculus, as well as the usual calculus sequence.The book is addressed to undergraduate and graduate students in Masters of Finance programs as well as to those who wish to become more efficient in their practical applications.Topics covered:

Since 2007, the repeated financial crises around the world have brought to the headlines financial practices and models considered to fuel the economic instabilities. Deep Dive into Financial Models: Modeling Risk and Uncertainty comes handy in demystifying the underlying quantitative finance concepts. With a limited use of mathematical formalism, the book explains thoroughly the models, their hypotheses, principles and other building blocks. A particular care is given to model limitations and their misuse for investment strategies, asset pricing, or risk management. Its reader-friendly nature provides readers with a head start in quantitative finance.

What's the secret to passing the SAFE Mortgage Loan Originator National Exam? If you answered "memorizing all the questions and answers you can find," you're wrong. You'll have a much better chance of passing the loan originator exam if you understand the material. "The SAFE Mortgage Loan Originator National Exam Study Guide - Second Edition" explains the required information and contains links to additional material. Prepare Yourself for a New Career This updated and enhanced loan originator exam manual includes the latest rulings by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Other topics include: Federal Mortgage-Related Laws SAFE Act Introduction to Mortgage Lending General Mortgage Knowledge Basic Concepts of Mortgage Financing The Loan Application Underwriting, Closing and the Secondary Market Ethics and Fraud Mortgage Terminology There are quizzes throughout the book and two practice final exams to help you test your knowledge; in total, there are more than 400 questions and answers. The author was a licensed mortgage broker for seven years and passed the national exam on her first attempt. Scroll to the top of the page and select the Buy button to get started on your new career.

The Complete Debt Relief Manual is the definitive guide to paying off and eliminating any kind of debt. Written from a procedure writer's perspective, it will guide you, with detailed steps, sample letters, and checklists, through the processes of budgeting, deciding the best way to pay off debts, negotiating settlements with credit card companies or the IRS without getting scammed by debt settlement or consolidation companies, dealing with debt collector calls and hassles, handling or avoiding lawsuits, determining whether or not to declare bankruptcy and how to avoid it, and repairing your credit and improving your credit score. Foreclosure is not dealt with due to its specialized nature and the risks involved of tackling it without an attorney. Born from the author's painful lessons learned and personal experience, The Compete Debt Relief Manual is a treasure of accurate and effective procedures to guide your every step on your journey to debt freedom.

When author and operational excellence consultant Menno R. van Dijk joined ING Domestic Bank in the Netherlands, the company had already been using the Lean system a few years. But van Dijk felt something was missing-the fun factor: experiments, improvements, a supportive management style, and teamwork. He wasn't seeing the sense of invigoration and renewal that comes when employees on the shop floor experience the improvement brought on by a Lean implementation.

He went to work and created a new approach-Super7-that took the Lean system in financial services to the next level. It radically reduced customer waiting times with less management and more responsibility on the shop floor. In Super7 Operations, he discusses Super7 in detail-how it was developed, what it does for customers, how it changes culture on the shop floor, and how it affects employees and managers. He explains its benefits, which include

flexible capacity to cope with fluctuating demand-no inventory, no waiting;

small, autonomous teams committed to getting the job done for their customers;

output management and delegated responsibilities; and

continuous improvement of performance without the need for tight controls.

Including case studies, this guide provides valuable tips and tricks for implementing Super7 in an organization that is looking for ways to improve their customers' experience.

Decision-makers in business and economics face a staggering array of problems. For example, managers of growing firms have to decide when to expand their business, governments have to decide whether to undertake large infrastructure investments, and managers of oil firms must decide how rapidly to deplete their reserves. While these problems seem quite diverse, they all share many important features. In each case, the decision-maker must choose when to take a particular action that will be potentially impossible to reverse, and the consequences of taking (or not taking) that action are uncertain. Also, the timing and nature of these actions directly affect the cash flows generated by the entities they manage. This book explains how techniques originally developed to price financial derivatives can be used to analyze real-world decisions, and provides the tools necessary to put them into practice.
The real options analysis approach to decision-making is built on strong theoretical foundations, and is widely discussed in practitioner literature, but often only at a fairly intuitive level. What practitioners need-and what this book delivers-is a structured approach to systematically applying real options analysis to the wide variety of problems they will meet in business and economics.
Real Options in Theory and Practice focuses on building up a general approach to solving real options problems from the ground up. Rather than aiming to build a "black box" to solve a small set of standardized real options problems, it describes the building blocks of any successful real options analysis and shows how they can be assembled in a way that is appropriate to the problem being analyzed. And for all of the numerical examples in the book, there is an accompanying CD that contains spreadsheets ready to use on the wide variety of applications the book brings into the picture. For both practitioners and academics, Real Options in Theory and Practice will serve as an authoritative and invaluable resource for those looking for effective and practical solutions to complex, real-life problems.

For over twenty-five years, the authors of International Financial Reporting and Analysis have provided comprehensive insight into the intricacies of financial reporting. This ninth edition has been updated throughout with an increased focus on ethics, sustainability and corporate governance. Timely real-world illustrations and activities give students a truly international perspective to successfully interpret and use IFRS Standards in business. This title is available with MindTap, a flexible online learning solution that provides your students with all the tools they need to succeed, including an interactive eReader, engaging multimedia, practice questions, assessment materials, revision aids and analytics to help you track their progress.

Microfinance investment funds are a recent development that will grow in importance. These funds expand the range of opportunities for financing microfinance institutions, enabling them to offer greater outreach and diversity of products for microentrepreneurs and small businesses. Microfinance now spans the range of finance, from the most simple enterprise to the complexity of capital markets. KfW actively promotes microfinance investment funds and other activities that facilitate the growth of microfinance. This book is an expression of KfW's role as information broker and trend setter. The authors who contributed to this collection offer a comprehensive range of perspectives and themes related to microfinance investment and its promotion.

Two of the most important factors contributing to national and international economy are processing of information for accurate financial forecasting and decision making as well as processing of information for efficient control of manufacturing systems for increased productivity. The associated problems are very complex and conventional methods often fail to produce acceptable solutions. Moreover, businesses and industries always look for superior solutions to boost profitability and productivity. In recent times, artificial neural networks have demonstrated promising results in solving many real-world problems in these domains, and these techniques are increasingly gaining business and industry acceptance among the practitioners. ""Artificial Neural Networks in Finance and Manufacturing"" presents many state-of-the-art and diverse applications to finance and manufacturing, along with underlying neural network theories and architectures. It offers researchers and practitioners the opportunity to access exciting and cutting-edge research focusing on neural network applications, combining two aspects of economic domain in a single and consolidated volume.

This book provides an effective antidote to the small business owner's frustration with government, demonstrating how to cut through regulations, red tape, and political corruption. Even as the American economy has slumped and every institution-private, municipal, and federal-strives to cut costs, government continues to grow more complex, intrusive, and expensive. Small businesses already bear a disproportionate share of regulatory costs and suffer more than large competitors when corruption distorts local markets. This situation will soon get worse: looming federal health care as well as environmental and financial mandates will push vast new oversight responsibilities into the states-and onto businesses' backs. Amy H. Handlin applies her 20 years' experience in state government and politics to provide this practical, results-oriented guide that teaches how to successfully navigate the jungle of overlapping federal, state, and municipal rules-skills that will become more essential as regulations balloon. Readers will learn how government works, get insight into the mindset of bureaucrats and politicians, and discover specific, nuts-and-bolts strategies for dealing with even the most unwelcoming, recalcitrant, or even dishonest officials. Provides model advocacy materials Includes end-of-chapter summaries that reinforce key concepts Presents vignettes dubbed "Tales from the Dark Side" that portray the worst in government bungling and help reinforce points in the text Contains a glossary clarifying common bureaucratic and political jargon

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 brings together a good mix of academics and practitioners for a discussion that focuses on how to change financial practice and the academic field of finance in order to understand the current financial crisis and deal with future turbulent financial times. The volume is based on contributions by prominent academics and practitioners from Europe, Asia and the USA. The book contains several essays, most prominently by Maurizio Murgia, an internationally renowned European corporate finance scholar, and Robert E. Krainer, a senior professor with banking and business cycles research interest from University of Wisconsin-Madison. This book also deals with pedagogical, empirical and theoretical considerations in light of the crisis.