This book aims to provide a rigorous yet pragmatic approach to the valuation and management of investments in the energy sector.

Time and uncertainty pervade most if not all issues relevant to energy assets. They run from the early stage of prototype and demonstration to the ultimate abandonment and decommissioning.

Risk in particular appears in several areas; thus, one can distinguish technical risk from financial risk. Furthermore, the extent to which one can react to them is different (just think of price risk and regulation risk). Markets in general, and financial markets in particular, regularly put a price on a number of assets which differ in their return/risk characteristics. And academia has developed sound financial principles for valuation purposes in a number of contexts.

Nonetheless, the physical characteristics of the assets involved also play a key role in their valuation if only because of the restrictions that they entail.

There are some instances in which the practitioner/researcher is able to come up with an analytical solution to the valuation problem. Typically, however, these instances are limited because of their relying on stylized facts or idealized frameworks. Unfortunately, many relevant instances lack analytical solutions, so one must resort to numerical methods. The book clearly explains how to implement them in a meaningful way. Their usefulness is further enhanced when numerical estimates of relevant parameters are derived from actual market prices (as long as these are available and reliable).

The book starts from the basics of valuation in a dynamic, certain context. The second part then considers uncertainty and introduces a number of useful results and tools to grapple effectively with it. The last part applies these tools to the valuation of energy assets in a sequential manner, i.e. by considering one, two and three sources of risk. The last chapter provides examples of joint optimal management and value maximization in conventional power plants.

"Promoting Microfinance: Challenge and Innovations in Developing Countries and Countries in Transition" brings together essays and empirical work by leading researchers and practitioners in the field of microfinance. The book covers key issues currently facing the microfinance industry. These include the following topics: challenges and innovations in microfinance policies, design and regulation; the role of microfinance institutions and apex organizations in natural disaster mitigation; achieving the balance between public support and external aid in helping the microfinance industry dealing with natural or man-made hazards affecting both them and their clients; and performance and impact assessment of microfinance institutions. In addition, the book provides an overview of the microfinance industry in selected countries/regions and provides lessons learned from cases spanning countries in Latin America, Africa, Europe and Asia. Together, the collection of essays and studies presented in this volume highlight the challenges faced by the microfinance industry and its future direction.

This book explores financial stability issues in the context of East Asia. In the East Asian region financial stability has been a major concern ever since the Asian crisis of 1997/98, which still looms large in the collective memory of the affected countries. The global crisis, which had its starting point in 2007, only served to exacerbate this concern. Safeguarding financial stability is therefore a major goal of any country in the region. Diverging cultural, political and economic backgrounds may however pose different stability challenges and necessary cooperation may be complicated by this diversity. Against this backdrop the contributions of this book by leading academics from the fields of economics and law as well as by practitioners from central banks shed light on various financial stability issues. The volume explores the legal environment of central banks as lenders of last resort and analyzes challenges to financial stability such as shadow banking and the choice of exchange rate regimes. Case studies from China, Japan and Indonesia are contrasted with experiences from Europe.

Askari and Krichene provide a comprehensive background for recent international financial crises rapid expansion of interest-bearing debt and monetary expansion though the fractional reserve banking system. In this context, the authors provide an analysis of the experience and issues associated with international payments systems the various forms of the gold standard, the Bretton Woods system and the present system of flexible exchange rates. The authors go on to examine the case for fixed exchange rates (gold standard and other interesting variations) anchored in Islamic finance. The message of this book is that the gold standard could provide a solution for addressing international financial instability if and only if it is anchored in 100% reserve banking, which is an essential pillar of Islamic finance.

This book provides advanced analytics and decision management techniques and tools for developing sustainable competitive advantages in the studied target context. In order to achieve sustainable economy, the capacity to endure, it is essential to understand and study the mechanisms for interactions and impact from and among these perspectives.

The recent stock market bubble of the late 1990s and subsequent crash has made people more aware of the need to conduct practical financial analysis. Practical financial economics, i.e., the application of financial theory to practical financial analysis, is explained here with respect to a number of different topics, with a focus on valuation. Largely normative (instead of being theoretical, empirical, or descriptive, as most academic work seems to be), yet solidly grounded in theory (instead of being ad hoc, as much purely practitioner work seems to be), this book represents a collection of articles that are designed to have useful implications for both practitioners and academics.

Much of the book is focused on the concept of practical valuation of assets, such as individual stocks, the stock market, and foreign currencies. At least partially because one of the most important financial theories, the theory of efficient markets, makes practical valuation analysis virtually useless by assuming the intrinsic value of any asset is determined by its market price, the subject of practical valuation has been largely neglected in academic research. However, the efficient markets theory itself, being based on a general assumption that investors properly value securities by their trading, requires the very practical valuation that a belief in market efficiency makes useless. Within this context, it is not surprising that individual stocks, such as Enron's, and the entire stock market itself, can be effectively mispriced, as this book shows.

A Fragile Balance examines strategies to promote emergency savings, especially among underserved households. Each chapter is by an expert contributor and proposes an innovative financial product or service designed to bolster emergency savings among low-asset families. This collection also offers readers insights into the role of emergency savings and mechanisms to facilitate savings behaviors, and raises critical questions of the scale, institutional capacity, sustainability, accessibility, and effectiveness of existing programs.

Options have been traded for hundreds of years, but investment decisions were based on gut feelings until the Nobel Prize-winning discovery of the Black-Scholes options pricing model in 1973 ushered in the era of the "quants." Wall Street would never be the same.

In "Pricing the Future," financial economist George G. Szpiro tells the fascinating stories of the pioneers of mathematical finance who conducted the search for the elusive options pricing formula. From the broker's assistant who published the first mathematical explanation of financial markets to Albert Einstein and other scientists who looked for a way to explain the movement of atoms and molecules, "Pricing the Future" retraces the historical and intellectual developments that ultimately led to the widespread use of mathematical models to drive investment strategies on Wall Street.

This book describes specific problems and proposes solutions for different areas of finance in Central and Southeastern European countries. Covering a broad spectrum of topics, from monetary economics and electronic money to capital markets, banking and insurance, it comprises theoretical and empirical contributions by authors from nine countries - Poland, Slovakia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Serbia and Greece. Intended for academics as well as policy makers and practitioners it offers new perspectives on Central and Southeastern European finance research.

This book addresses synergy management, which poses an important challenge for firms, advisors and practitioners involved in mergers and acquisitions (M&A). Synergy plays a key role in M&A contexts, both in the decision-making process and, subsequently, in the integration phase. However, despite the fact that synergy value is commonly regarded as one of the key success factors in M&A, research shows that firms generally fail to achieve the expected synergy. The extant literature is characterized by a lack of comprehensive models of synergy management: the assessment of synergy value remains a "black box" for scholars and practitioners alike. The authors provide a comprehensive framework for synergy management by integrating findings from prior research and various disciplines. The framework highlights the main dimensions of synergy management in mergers and acquisitions, common pitfalls, and new models and tools for avoiding them. As such, the book enriches the M&A literature, offers new insights for scholars, and provides valuable guidelines for practitioners involved in synergy management.

Our planet faces a systemic threat from climate change, which the world community of nations is ill-prepared to address, and this book argues that a new form of ecologically conscious capitalism is needed in order to tackle this serious and rising threat. While the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015 has finally implemented a global climate policy regime, its modest means belie its ambitious goals. Our institutional financial organizations are not equipped to deal with the problems that any credible commitment to a low-carbon economy will have to confront. We will have to go beyond cap-and-trade schemes and limited carbon taxes to cut greenhouse gas emissions substantially in due time. This book offers a way forward toward that goal, with a conceptual framework that brings environmental preservation back into our macro-economic growth and forecasting models. This framework obliges firms to consider other goals beyond shareholder value maximization, outlining the principal tenets of a climate-friendly finance and introducing a new type of money linked to climate mitigation and adaptation efforts.

Using network models to investigate the interconnectivity in modern economic systems allows researchers to better understand and explain some economic phenomena. This volume presents contributions by known experts and active researchers in economic and financial network modeling. Readers are provided with an understanding of the latest advances in network analysis as applied to economics, finance, corporate governance, and investments. Moreover, recent advances in market network analysis that focus on influential techniques for market graph analysis are also examined. Young researchers will find this volume particularly useful in facilitating their introduction to this new and fascinating field. Professionals in economics, financial management, various technologies, and network analysis, will find the network models presented in this book beneficial in analyzing the interconnectivity in modern economic systems.

This proceedings volume highlights important points of achieving a balanced and sustained growth path from diverse economics and finance perspectives, touching on a wide array of economic and social analyses in India. Featuring contributions presented at the 2018 International Conference on Economics and Finance (ICEF-2018) held at the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, Goa, India, the enclosed papers explore topics such as inflation dynamics, information transmission in post-recession era, leverage effect and volatility asymmetry, structural change and economic growth and reforming tax systems, among others. The Indian economy today is remarkable and, not surprisingly, it is growing very rapidly. It has emerged as the fastest growing major economy in the world as per the Central Statistical Organization (CSO) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) and it is expected to be one of the top three economic powers of the world over the next 10 to15 years, backed by its strong democracy and partnership. At the backdrop of impressive progress of the Indian economy during the last two decades, the question that remains to be answered is does India still have a long way to go before it is functioning well as a market economy? This book critically examines the performance of the Indian economy at the national, state and sectorial levels. Featuring contributions from leading academicians, scholars and practitioners from Asia and the rest of the world, this book is an asset to students, professors, scholars, practitioners and policy makers in the areas of India economics, finance and sustainable development.

Financial services technology and its effect on the field of finance and banking has been of major importance within the last few years. The spread of these so-called disruptive technologies, including Blockchain, has radically changed financial markets and transformed the operation of the industry as a whole. This is the first multidisciplinary handbook of FinTech and Blockchain covering finance, economics, and legal aspects globally. With comprehensive coverage of the current landscape of financial technology alongside a forward-looking approach, the chapters are devoted to the spread of structured finance, ICT, distributed ledger technology (DLT), cybersecurity, data protection, artificial intelligence, and cryptocurrencies. Given an unprecedented 2020, the contributions also address the consequences of the current emergency, and the pandemic stroke, which is revolutionizing social and economic paradigms and heavily affecting Fintech, Blockchain, and the banking sector as well, and would be of particular interest to finance academics and researchers alongside banking and financial services professionals.

This book provides a comprehensive and practical guide to Islamic finance. It covers a broad range of important topics including Islamic banking, capital markets, Takaful, wealth management, Fintech in Islamic finance, compliance and governance issues. It begins by introducing Islamic banking, covering its objectives, principles and evolution, before moving on to discuss the religious foundations of Islamic finance. The prohibition of Riba and Gharar and Islamic contracts are explored, before Islamic deposits, and financing are discussed in practice. A comparative analysis is provided between Islamic banking products and services in a range of counties throughout the world. Information technology including fintech, payment and settlement networks, opportunities and challenges are also addressed. Corporate governance, Islamic capital markets, and Islamic insurance (Takaful) are all explored, before concluding with a chapter on wealth management and Islamic investment funds. It features case studies based on the authors' own experiences consulting with Islamic financial institutions. Ideal for those looking to improve their understanding of practical Islamic financing models, contracts, product structures and product features, this book will appeal to both students and practitioners in Islamic finance and banking, those based in Islamic financial institutions, and those based in conventional financial institutions who may be looking to enter the Islamic financial market.

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

The sharp realities of financial globalization become clear during crises, when winners and losers emerge. Crises usher in short- and long-term changes to the status quo, and everyone agrees that learning from crises is a top priority. "The Evidence and Impact of Financial Globalization" devotes separate articles to specific crises, the conditions that cause them, and the longstanding arrangements devised to address them. While other books and journal articles treat these subjects in isolation, this volume presents a wide-ranging, consistent, yet varied specificity. Substantial, authoritative, and useful, these articles provide material unavailable elsewhere.

Substantial articles by top scholars sets this volume apart from other information sources Rapidly developing subjects will interest readers well into the future Reader demand and lack of competitors underline the high value of these reference works"

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

Fixed and Marginal Costs in Electricity Markets lays out clear cost methodologies for understanding marginal price structures, further cementing electricity's role as an asset class with fixed and variable costs.

The period of past four decades has been characterized as one of neo-liberalism, financialization, globalization, privatization and de-regulation. Inequality has risen in industrialised countries, labour's share in national income has been in decline and economic growth slowed. The evidence of the damage to the environment from human economic activity, and the dramatic consequences of failure to address climate change have become more apparent and urgent. The global financial crises shocked the complacency of the neo-liberal era, though a decade later it may be doubted how much has changed. The central purpose of this volume is to investigate a range of economic and social policies, which move in the direction of constructing a post-neoliberal world. These range over alternative forms of ownership (public, co-operative), policies to address and reverse economic and social inequalities, responses to the forces of globalization, re-constituting the financial system and its roles, and the nature of employment.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the First International Conference on Management Science and Engineering: Innovation and High-tech Services, ICMSE 2013, held in Macau, in June 2013. The papers are contributed by innovative researchers, engineers and practitioners in the field of management science, information system, finance, economics and accounting and offer a platform for exchanging the latest research findings in the field of management science and management innovation, for looking forward to the future trends in the management science and management innovation field in the 21st century, and to promote management modernization and high-tech innovation services.

This book describes five qualitative investment decision-making methods based on the hesitant fuzzy information. They are: (1) the investment decision-making method based on the asymmetric hesitant fuzzy sigmoid preference relations, (2) the investment decision-making method based on the hesitant fuzzy trade-off and portfolio selection, (3) the investment decision-making method based on the hesitant fuzzy preference envelopment analysis, (4) the investment decision-making method based on the hesitant fuzzy peer-evaluation and strategy fusion, and (5) the investment decision-making method based on the EHVaR measurement and tail analysis.

The changing dynamics of business worldwide have led organizations to look beyond traditional managerial practices while at the same time attempting to retain their core competitive advantages. This development has called upon academicians and practitioners alike to reassess the different aspects of business management such as macroeconomic variables, the nature of the market, the changing features of the workplace, the new work ethos, and/or employer-employee exchanges. In this context, the book provides essential insights on industry innovations, academic advances and policy movements with regard to recovering markets in India and around the globe. The individual papers highlight potential avenues that could allow industry to better understand and respond to the global crisis. The book collects research papers presented at the Global Conference on Managing in Recovering Markets (GCMRM), held in March 2014. Seven international and 120 national business schools and management universities were represented at the conference, the first in a series of 13 planned under the GCMRM agenda for 2014 17. The book includes more than 30 research papers chosen from a pool of 118 presented at the conference, all of which have undergone a rigorous blind review process."

This book examines the successful private, public and civil society models of agriculture value chains in India and addresses relevant challenges and opportunities to improve their efficiency and inclusiveness. It promotes the value-chain approach as a tool to improve access to finance for small holder farmers and discusses the possible structure of and regulatory framework for the 'National Common Agricultural Market'- a term that featured in the Indian Finance Minister's 2014-15 budget speech, and which is aimed towards standardizing and improving transparency in agricultural trade practices across states under a single licensing system. The book deliberates on the potential of developing innovative financial instruments into the value chain framework by supporting tripartite agreements between producers, lead firms and financial institutions. Its fourteen chapters are divided into three parts-Agriculture Value Chain Financing: Theoretical Framework, Agriculture Value Chain Financing in Cases of Select Commodities; and Institutional Framework for Agriculture Value Chain Financing. Since the concept of value chain financing is being considered as a future policy agenda, the book is of great interest to corporations dealing with agricultural inputs and outputs; commercial, regional, rural and cooperative banks; policy makers; academicians and NGOs.