Accounting, Economics & Finance

A Call for Judgment is both a primer on the role of finance in a dynamic modern economy, and a cautionary tale about the pitfalls of banks functioning as highly centralized, mechanistic entities. It is essential reading for anyone interested in bringing the economy back to a point at which decisions can be made that foster organic economic growth without the potentially disastrous risks currently accepted by modern finance.

This new, all-in-one guide explores jobs in accounting, business, and finance, with self-assessment questions, further resources, and advice on ways to reach career goals.

As the global economy continues to weather the effects of the recession brought on by the financial crisis of 2007–08, perhaps no sector has been more affected and more under pressure to change than the industry that was the focus of that crisis: financial services. In After the Crash, noted economists bring together a distinguished group of experts from academia and the private sector to take a hard look at how the financial industry and some of its practices are likely to change in the years ahead.

As the banking crisis and its effects on the world economy have made plain, the stock market is of colossal importance to our livelihoods. In Framing Finance, Alex Preda looks at the history of the market to figure out how we arrived at a point where investing is not only commonplace, but critical, as market fluctuations threaten our plans to send our children to college or retire comfortably.

This text offers an accessible yet rigorous development of many of the fields of mathematics necessary for success in investment and quantitative finance, covering topics applicable to portfolio theory, investment banking, option pricing, investment, and insurance risk management.

The failure of a large banking organization is seen as posing significant risks to other financial institutions, to the financial system as a whole, and possibly to the economic and social order.

In a fast-moving world, the necessity of making decisions, and preferably good ones, has become even more difficult. One reason is the variety and number of choices perhaps available which often are not presented or understood. Alternatives are often unclear and complex paths to them confusing and misleading. Thus the process of decision making itself requires analysis on an ongoing basis. Decision making is often made based on cultural factors whereas the best alternative might be quite different. The subject touches ethics aspects as well as psychological considerations. This book presents important research on the psychology of decision making related to economics, business and finance.

This book will be of interest to advanced students looking for an even-handed overview of alternative theories of financial disturbances; academics who need a reference on the historical interrelationships of the literature in the field; and professionals who want to understand how the tools and concepts they use daily have emerged through time and whether there are forgotten lessons to be heeded. Susan K. Schroeder, Review of Political Economy Financial markets have an aura of disturbing instability. In this history of the thought of earlier economists who have studied the processes of finance, Jan Toporowski takes us on a fascinating journey to explore how they saw the impact of finance on the real economy. Not one for formal models, nor for rational expectations, Jan [Toporowski] values historical experience and the insights and experience of earlier great thinkers. Charles A.E. Goodhart, CBE, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK Jan Toporowski s Theories of Financial Disturbance is a tour de force. With his substantial knowledge of financial markets, his deep conceptual understanding of relevant concepts and his exhaustive reading of the essential literature, he is ideally placed to tell an absorbing narrative of, as he writes, critical theories of finance from Adam Smith to the present days and he has. In a world in which finance and industrial and commercial capital are so out of kilter with one another, Toporowski s lucid wisdom is required reading. G.C. Harcourt, University of Cambridge, Jesus College, Cambridge, UK and University of Adelaide, Australia Theories of Financial Disturbance examines how the operations of market-driven finance may initiate and transmit disturbances to the economy at large, by looking in detail at how various economists envisaged such disturbances occurring. This book is more than just a study in the history of economic thought it illustrates how economic debate focuses upon financial disturbance at times of financial instability, and then conveniently discards critical views when such instability recedes. Jan Toporowski looks at the development of critical theories from the views of Adam Smith and François Quesnay, and their reflection in recent new Keynesian ideas of Joseph Stiglitz and Ben Bernanke, through credit cycles in Alfred Marshall and Ralph Hawtrey, to the financial theories of Thorstein Veblen and Irving Fisher. Also studied are the theories of John Kenneth Galbraith, Michal Kalecki, John Maynard Keynes, Charles Kindleberger, Rosa Luxemburg, Hyman P. Minsky, Robert Shiller and Josef Steindl. Not least among the original features of this book are a discussion of Quesnay s attitude towards interest, and a chapter devoted to the work of the Polish monetary economist Marek Breit, whose work inspired Kalecki. Jan Toporowski s fascinating work will find its audience in academics of finance and financial economics, bankers, financiers and policy makers concerned with financial stability as well as anyone looking for arguments on the imperfect functioning of finance.