This book presents an up-to-date overview of the theory as well as the empirics of the relationship between investment, financial imperfections and uncertainty. After reviewing the capital market imperfections literature and the empirical results, the authors discuss both traditional investment models with uncertainty and the more modern option based models. They present an overview of empirical results of the modelling of investment under uncertainty. In these examples, the effects of capital market imperfections on investment are carefully considered. The authors conclude that there is overwhelming empirical support for a negative uncertainty-investment relationship. This innovative book will appeal to academics with an interest in investment theory, professionals in the financial sector and students of macroeconomics and finance. Investment, Capital Market Imperfections, and Uncertainty assumes only a basic knowledge of mathematics and is easily accessible.

This book explores current digitalization issues in finance and accounting with particular focus on emerging and transitioning markets. It features models, empirical studies and cases studies on topics such as Fintech, blockchain technology, financing renewable energy, and XBRL usage from sectors such health care, pharmacology, transportation, and education. Such a complex view of current economic phenomena makes the volume attractive not only for academia, but also for regulators and policy-makers, when deliberating the potential outcome of competing regulatory mechanisms.

Intangible assets are of growing importance to corporate competitiveness and economic performance. They include R&D, human capital, innovation in products and in organisation, trademarks and patents, networking and software. This path-breaking book provides a theoretical and empirical analysis of intangible investment and its effect on public policy in Europe. The authors find that the growing importance of intangibles is transforming the direction of public policies in Europe, particularly industrial, R&D, competition and trade policies. They conclude that government policies must recognise the fact that intangible investment is becoming the key element in bringing about durable growth and accord at least the same priority to intangible factors as to physical investment. This work should be essential reading for students interested in this new field of economic analysis, national and international policymakers, and industrialists involved in the non-physical economy.

The purpose of this book is to study the association of corporate environmental responsibility (CER) with financial performance, capital structure, innovative activities, corporate risk, working capital management and accounting quality. Undoubtedly, CER has been developed into a crucial corporate issue around the world. CER has been incorporated within various sectors, countries and includes many types of activities and dimensions. A fundamental issue that is addressed in this book, is how corporate finance and accounting are affected by CER activities and how it impacts company performance. In order to analyse this interrelation, the authors focus on a sample of firms from 28 EU member countries. The purpose of this book is to study the association of CER with financial performance, capital structure, innovative activities, corporate risk, working capital management and accounting quality. The book also intends to provide useful policy recommendations as well as to offer constructive impulses for future research.

The relationship between public investment and regional economic development is of perennial interest and is particularly topical now as issues of infrastructure and innovation are high on policy agendas in many countries. Public investment is often viewed as a possible method for 'jump-starting' lagging regional economies and also as a requirement for the continued development of more prosperous regions. Public Investment and Regional Economic Development provides a systematic analysis of the complex relationship between public investment and regional economic development. The authors offer new insights into the key issues of regional growth, and present a broad variety of perspectives ranging from transport and housing infrastructure through to human capital and innovation. With contributions from leading regional scientists, and each themed section of the book prefaced with an editorial introduction to ensure coherence, this illuminating book is sure to offer policymakers new research insights into key issues of regional growth. Academics and researchers of urban and regional planning, geography and economic development will also find the book of great interest.

Having the big idea is merely the beginning. Raising and using venture capital is pivotal to the success of many an ambitious new venture, but venture capital is more than money. It's far too expensive to be treated merely as cash, and if used well, far more critical to the successful venture.This can be a daunting process. Smarter Ventures leads you inside the world of European venture capital, and takes you step-by-step through the venture cycle. By holding a mirror up to both sides of the money-raising process, Katharine Campbell shows how entrepreneurs can better understand venture capitalists - and vice versa - leading to more productive relationships and smarter ventures. Katharine Campbell explains how venture capitalists think, what they are looking for and why. Learn how to spot the good -and the bad - investors, and equip yourself with the tools and the knowledge to seal a successful partnership. Smarter Ventures is the bible of the European venture capital market and your complete companion to the venture cycle. "Smarter Ventures is essential reading for anyone interested and involved in new ventures and venture capital - whether funding it, using it, providing it or teaching potential entrepreneurs.... The book is so complete it is almost a funding cookbook.... Anyone involved in enterprise, as a practitioner, venture capitalist or academic, should regard Smarter Ventures as required reading." - Book Review, Financial Times

Since the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, there has been a growing interest among policy makers towards the more active role of the state in the enterprise sector. This book provides valuable insight into the changing role of state-owned enterprises in economic policy, a topic at the cross section of several interrelated, but usually independent research streams first of all transition research, varieties of capitalism literature, public choice approach and institutionalism studies. With the existing literature on state ownership concentrating on the developed economies and on selected emerging economies, this book fills an important gap in focusing on the post-communist transition countries. The Polish experience is looked at in a comparative perspective of selected transition countries, which deserve special attention as they had to cope with a radical change of their economic policies towards the enterprise sector. This book will be valuable reading for academics in economic policy, transition economics, and institutional economics, and policy makers and practitioners in EU bodies and emerging economies.

Public administration is under increasing pressure to become more efficient, better geared to the demands and opinions of citizens, more open to contacts with transnational bureaucracies, and more responsive to the ideas of elected policymakers. Bureaucracy in the Modern State offers a comparative analysis of how these challenges affect public administration in France, the United States, Germany, Japan, Britain, Sweden and the developing countries of the Third World. Specialist chapters written by acknowledged experts on the public policy of each country are brought together in a comparative framework in order to assess the impact of recent changes on the relationship between policy makers and the civil service, and the organizational challenges presented by the introduction of market-based ideology. Assessing public administration from a state-society perspective, the authors focus on four basic factors which they believe determine the role of the bureaucracy in modern societies: the configuration of the state, the relationship between policymakers and the bureaucracy, the internal organizational dynamics of the bureaucracy, and the relationship between the public bureaucracy and civil society. A special analysis of the relationship between domestic and transnational bureaucracies is also included, with particular reference made to the European Union. Addressing one of the key public policy issues of our time, this book will be widely used by teachers, students and researchers who will welcome the combination of in-depth studies of selected countries, from capitalist democracies to developing countries, with an authoritative comparative analysis held together by a distinct theoretical framework.

This timely book provides an authoritative analysis of the pension reform process in nine countries, namely Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the UK and USA, with Japan being covered in the introduction by the editors. The book draws on the work of experts from each of these countries to provide a picture of how the pension systems work in each country. The contributors examine the policy reform process in each country, against the background of the fiscal stresses arising from the ageing populations in OECD countries. They also analyse whether different types of pension delivery systems (e.g. the public-private mix) generate different standards of living. Each study is prepared according to a common template allowing meaningful analysis of pension delivery and outcomes across countries using similar macroeconomic statistics and microdata. Pension Systems and Retirement Incomes across OECD Countries is an extremely valuable and empirically sound book on a highly topical subject. It will appeal to scholars of economics, public policy, political science and finance as well as being of great interest to policymakers and practitioners involved in pension fund management.

In recent decades, local government has become increasingly complex. The Political Economy of Local Government draws upon recent developments in economics, including new institutional economics, and contemporary advances in the theories of social capital and leadership, in order to explain local government policy formulation. The authors go beyond the study of local public goods to explore the sources of market failure and examine whether local authorities are more susceptible to certain types of government failure. In addition, a transaction cost analysis of markets, hierarchies and networks is applied to ascertain the comparative institutional advantage local authorities might have in the supply of local governance. The book also considers the extent of the influence that these recent advances in the theories of social capital and leadership have on the process and implementation of local government policy. This book offers a fresh and readily accessible perspective on the political economy of local government policy making, and will be of particular interest to students and practitioners of economics, political science, public administration, policy studies and local government.

This research review assesses the ground-breaking contributions to the evolution of knowledge in the economics of risk and time, from its early twentieth-century explorations to its current diversity of approaches. The analysis focuses first on the basic decisions under uncertainty, and then on asset pricing. It further discusses both classical expected utility approach and its non-expected utility generalizations, with applications to dynamic portfolio choices, insurance, risk sharing, and risk prevention. This review will be valuable for scholars in finance and macroeconomics, particularly those with an interest in the modeling foundations of consumer and investor decisions under uncertainty.

Emerging economies arguably have different socio-fiscal dynamics compared to developed economies. On one side they have the need for corporate interventions in national development, on the other hand, they do not have enough research to support the agenda. In recent times there has been a conscious effort to legislate Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in some of these countries in order to bring about sustainable development. Yet, it is this legislation, which is debated among many others. This book provides its readers with a comprehensive interpretation of the various CSR perspectives in emerging economies through academic research and case studies from practice. It not only points out the challenges, the debates, but also the dynamics of implementation and the impact of such CSR spent. This book therefore is targeted both towards academics as well as practitioners in an attempt to bring about an active academic-industry interface as CSR as a management function is part of dynamic social science.

Acquisitions are one of the most powerful tools in the business armoury, but they can also be positively dangerous. Conducting thorough due diligence is one of the most effective ways to reduce the risk involved in acquisition and investment, and to improve the chances of success. Due diligence is a term traditionally used for the review process applied to an acquisition. In recent times, the practice has evolved substantially and the level of detail and analysis now possible allows companies to take better development decisions.Well conducted due diligence can help a transaction to proceed smoothly, and can even enable companies to find ways of adding value to acquisitions and other partnerships. Any transaction is highly risky ? at least 50% of acquisitions fail and numerous other partnerships end in disappointment and acrimony. Due diligence is the essential step to taking the risk out of deals and business partnerships. This book is a concise, comprehensive guide to the process, containing practical advice, accessible analysis, and case studies.

In today s global society, microfinance affords lower income individuals the opportunity to improve their economic situation through a democratic, market-based process. Advanced Technologies for Microfinance: Solutions and Challenges is the first book to systematically address technology s impact on microfinance. It discusses a wide variety of technology applications that will define the next generation of the microfinance movement and it addresses the tough questions surrounding technology in microfinance. For instance, what are the disadvantages of technology-enabled microfinance and what will it mean for the inclusiveness and empowerment of the service? This dynamic collection is a must-have for anyone interested in microfinance, whether you are a donor, lender, or investor.

This book provides an overview of the historical financial reforms and regulatory changes in China, highlighting the background to and causes of changes in the income structure of China's banks. It also investigates ongoing concerns with regard to banking diversification in China, and its consequences, amid the global trend of banks' shift to non-traditional businesses. Focusing on three critical aspects of bank-income diversification, namely the effects on profitability, risk level, and efficiency, it employs the concept of systemically important banks, which describes the scale and degree of influence a bank has in global and domestic financial markets. More importantly, rather than replicating techniques employed in the research on developed markets, it applies several improved methodologies to address bank diversification in the specific context created by China's unique institutional background and data characteristics, such as GMM-type threshold models and stochastic frontier analysis with the within maximum likelihood estimation. Shedding new light on the current status of income diversification in the Chinese banking sector, this book is a valuable resource for readers in fields such as banking and financial stability. It will also help banking professionals and financial regulatory authorities to better understand the reform of China's financial industry and the future direction of banking.

This second edition updates and extends the original foundations of the loanable funds model. It develops a new monetary model of inside money, which is created by the commercial (or retail) banks, drawing on the events of 2007/08 that led to the Great Recession and fragile economy of today. Coronavirus is likely to cause another downturn of economic activity, from the perspective of late 2020 as this is written. That will represent a long-period of subpar, anaemic growth, which has not been satisfactorily explained by the traditional theory in the form of neo-classical analysis. The reason may lie with the adoption of a body of theory based primarily on a barter system of exchange but sometimes with one commodity used as money to try to explain a dynamic, monetary economy of today. Money has evolved from a system of barter to become a medium of exchange based on fiat money and credit currency underpinned by legal tender, and therefore, a creature of law. If households and firms lose confidence in the banking system, they can withdraw their deposits in the form of cash as a medium of exchange, which must be accepted in exchange for goods and services as legal tender. This book highlights the importance of how money is created or destroyed endogenously and derives the loanable supply of funds in conjunction with the demand within a revised analysis of monetary theory, with a new emphasis on portfolio theory. It applies critical thinking and the realization of a more precise formulation of the loanable funds theory to final year and postgraduate students in particular, with various features systematically added such as the catastrophe framework and Minsky's theory of changing states in an attempt to derive a fully dynamic model. There is a new framework using aggregate demand and supply analysis to explain inflation. This will be reinforced at each stage by the inclusion of revised and updated case studies, graphs and figures to give an international setting and application