Recent Developments on Money and Finance


Book Description

Assembles theoretical contributions to monetary theory, banking and finance. This book includes papers spanning themes from monetary policy to the optimal design of financial systems, and from the study of the causes of financial crises to payment systems design. It serves as a reference to researchers interested in the study of financial systems.




Exploring General Equilibrium


Book Description

An incisive, unconventional assessment of general equilibrium theory; with a previously unpublished paper. Fischer Black is known for his brilliance as well as his sometimes controversial opinions. Highly respected for his scholarly writings in finance, he now moves into different territory with this incisive, unconventional assessment of general equilibrium theory and what that theory reveals about business cycles, growth, and labor economics. The general equilibrium approach, Black asserts, can be used to explain most of the economy's behavior. It can explain business cycles and growth without using sticky prices, irrationality, economies of scale, or imperfect competition. It can explain the volatility of consumption, output, sales, investment, and inventories with axiomatic utility and constant-returns-to-scale production. It can explain temporary layoffs, job changes with and without intervening unemployment, and the behavior of vacancies. It can explain lower wages in part-time jobs, wages that increase rapidly with time on the job, and the forces that cause migration from poor to rich countries. Although the general equilibrium approach can't be tested in conventional ways, it can be used to generate examples that explain stylized facts—generalized observations from the real world—that have preoccupied macroeconomists for the last decade. Black contrasts his interpretation of these facts with conventional interpretations. Finally, he reviews a substantial body of literature on these topics.




Current Trends in Economics


Book Description

In 1990, the Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET) was founded with the main purpose to advance our knowledge in theoretical economics and to facilitate communication among researchers in economics, mathematics, game theory and any other field which is po tentially useful to economic theory. To achieve these goals, SAET sponsors the research journal Economic Theory published by Springer-Verlag and holds international conferences every other year. The first two conferences SAET took place in the island of Cephalonia, Greece, in the summers of of 1993 and 1995. In the summer of 1997, the conference was held in Antalya, Turkey. The twenty-nine papers in this volume are mostly by participants in the Antalya meeting of SAET and form a broad sample of the 150 papers pre sented there. Topics covered include cooperative and noncooperative games, social choice and welfare, bargaining, matchings, auctions, mechanism de sign, general equilibrium, general equilibrium with finance, industrial or ganization, macroeconomics, and experimental economics. We have chosen to present the papers according to the alphabetical order of first author names instead of grouping them by topic or theme. We have appended a complete listing of the sessions in the conference together with a list of program committee members and of sponsors at the end of the volume.




Why So High?


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Financial Integration, Entrepreneurial Risk and Global Dynamics


Book Description

How does financial integration impact capital accumulation, current-account dynamics, and cross-country inequality? This paper investigates this question within a two-country, general-equilibrium, incomplete-markets model that focuses on the importance of idiosyncratic entrepreneurial risk -- a risk that introduces, not only a precautionary motive for saving, but also a wedge between the interest rate and the marginal product of capital. This friction provides a simple resolution to the empirical puzzle that capital often fails to flow from the rich or slow-growing countries to the poor or fast-growing ones, and a distinct set of policy lessons regarding the intertemporal costs and benefits of capital-account liberalization. Illus. A print on demand report.




Mobilizing Money


Book Description

This book examines the origins of modern corporate finance systems during the rapid industrialization period leading up to World War I; leading to three sets of conclusions. First, modern financial systems are rooted in the past, are idiosyncratic to specific countries and are highly path-dependent. Therefore, to understand current financial institutions, we must take stock of the forces at play in the near and distant past. Second, financial institutions and markets do not create economic growth without significant first steps in industrial development and supporting institutions. Third, and most important from the modern policy standpoint, there is no 'one-size-fits-all' solution to financial system design and industrial development. Having specific types of financial institutions is far less important than developing a strong, stable and legally protected financial system with a rich diversity of institutions and vibrant markets that can adapt to changing needs.







Finance and Development


Book Description

In this new book a group of 18 distinguished authors presents comprehensive surveys of current issues in the field of finance and development. . . This book nicely bridges the gap between general research on the role of finance for economic growth and the role finance plays for developing economies and poverty reduction. . . Moreover, the authors identify a great number of promising ideas for future research. . . Ryszard Kokoszczynski, SUERF Newsletter The European Money & Finance Forum In the last two decades, the role of finance in the development process has become a major topic of research and debate. Although it is widely agreed that there is an important link between the two, there is much less consensus on the exact nature of the relationship. Is financial development a prerequisite for general economic development, or is it a more passive by-product of the development process? In this valuable new book, a distinguished group of authors takes stock of the existing state of knowledge in the field of finance and the development process. Each chapter offers a comprehensive survey and synthesis of current issues. These include such critical subjects as savings, financial markets and the macroeconomy, stock market development, financial regulation, foreign investment and aid, financing livelihoods, microfinance, rural financial markets, small and medium enterprises, corporate finance and banking. This book will be accessible to postgraduate and advanced undergraduate students of finance and development. It will also be an essential reference source for all professionals and academics working in this area who want to learn how finance can contribute to the development process and poverty reduction.







Working Papers Series


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