Probability And Finance Theory (Second Edition)


Book Description

This book is an introduction to the mathematical analysis of probability theory and provides some understanding of how probability is used to model random phenomena of uncertainty, specifically in the context of finance theory and applications. The integrated coverage of both basic probability theory and finance theory makes this book useful reading for advanced undergraduate students or for first-year postgraduate students in a quantitative finance course.The book provides easy and quick access to the field of theoretical finance by linking the study of applied probability and its applications to finance theory all in one place. The coverage is carefully selected to include most of the key ideas in finance in the last 50 years.The book will also serve as a handy guide for applied mathematicians and probabilists to easily access the important topics in finance theory and economics. In addition, it will also be a handy book for financial economists to learn some of the more mathematical and rigorous techniques so their understanding of theory is more rigorous. It is a must read for advanced undergraduate and graduate students who wish to work in the quantitative finance area.




Value Trap: Theory of Universal Valuation


Book Description

With an added Appendix and 40+ page Prologue, the second edition of the 2019 Best Indie Book Award (BIBA) winner for the category of Business takes readers through the COVID-19 crisis, building on the key tenets of the first edition. Value Trap received acclaim from the prestigious Next Generation Indie Book Awards, a Finalist in the category of Business. The text was also a Blue Ink Notable Book as well as a Readers' Favorite 5 Stars, named Honorable Mention in the Non-Fiction - General genre. More detail and new commentary, the second edition of Value Trap is a must read for any serious investor. Brian Michael Nelson, CFA, delivers again.From the back cover: "Nelson's career ranges from his beginnings as an analyst at Driehaus Capital Management to his career as director of global equity and credit research at Morningstar, to the recent establishment of his own investment publishing research firm, Valuentum Securities. Here, the equity-markets veteran explores his analytical framework for evaluating stocks, cautioning against investors getting lured into "value traps," scenarios where seemingly inexpensive stocks attract bargain hunters but continue to decline. Nelson maintains that shortcomings in prevalent financial analysis and investing include misguided focus on historical data, misinterpretation of common metrics, overreliance on indexing, and myopic pursuit of dividend-paying stocks. Instead, he believes enterprise valuation, which considers cash-based sources of intrinsic value of a company, should prevail. Well-researched and organized, the book offers a compelling wealth of information and serious discussion of market theory. It will likely overwhelm all but the most seasoned investors, and cynics may see it as a device to recruit readers to the author's business. Nonetheless, it stands on its considerable merits as a well-written and cogent articulation of a distinct perspective on equity analysis." - BlueInk Review of the first edition as published in the June 2019 spread of Booklist Magazine




Project Management Theory and Practice, Second Edition


Book Description

Updated to reflect the Project Management Institute’s (PMI’s) Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide), Fifth Edition, the new edition of this bestselling textbook continues to provide a practical and up-to-date overview of project management theory. Project Management Theory and Practice, Second Edition explains project management theory using language that is easy to understand. The book integrates the organizational environment that surrounds a project to supply the well-rounded knowledge of theories, organizational issues, and human behavior needed to manage real-world projects effectively. This edition includes a new chapter on Stakeholder Management, which is a new knowledge area covered in the new PMBOK® Guide. It also provides updated references and a new streamlined organization of chapters. There are several project-related model frameworks sponsored by PMI®, and many of these are covered in this text. Specifically, the book details: Work breakdown structures (WBS) Earned value management (EVM) Enterprise project management (EPMO) Portfolio management (PPM) Professional responsibility and ethics For many of the major sections, the PMI Global Accreditation curriculum learning objectives have been adapted with permission of PMI and used to guide the content. Filled with end-of-chapter questions, scheduling and budgeting problems, and scoping projects, this text is ideal for classroom use and essential reading for anyone seeking project management certification. The book also includes sample empirically oriented worksheets that demonstrate various management decision and analysis-oriented tools.




Financial Mathematics For Actuaries (Second Edition)


Book Description

Financial Mathematics for Actuaries is a textbook for students in actuarial science, quantitative finance, financial engineering and quantitative risk management and is designed for a one-semester undergraduate course.Covering the theories of interest rates, with applications to the evaluation of cash flows, the pricing of fixed income securities and the management of bonds, this textbook also contains numerous examples and exercises and extensive coverage of various Excel functions for financial calculation. Discussions are linked to real financial market data, such as historical term structure, and traded financial securities.The topics discussed in this book are essential for actuarial science students. They are also useful for students in financial markets, investments and quantitative finance. Students preparing for examinations in financial mathematics with various professional actuarial bodies will also find this book useful for self-study.In this second edition, the recent additions in the learning objectives of the Society of Actuaries Exam FM have been covered.




Public Finance in Theory and Practice Second edition


Book Description

The events of the last decade have challenged the contemporary neo-classical synthesis in all branches of economics, but particularly public finance. The most notable feature of the 2nd edition of Public Finance in Theory and Practice is the infusion of behavioral economics throughout the text, with an end of chapter question inviting the student to apply a behavioral lens to some question or issue. There continues to be an emphasis on the importance of the institutional context, drawing on examples from many countries and emphasizing the role of lower level governments in a federal system. The first five chapters establish this context by reviewing the role of government in a market system, the description of government structure from an economic perspective, the basic data about revenue and expenditures, the elements of public choice, and the distributional role of government. The book has been substantially reorganized to put more emphasis on public expenditure. Expanded treatment of public goods includes common property resources and congestible or club goods. Expanded discussion of budgeting and cost-benefit analysis provides some practical application of the theory. Updated discussions of social security, public education and health care address these three major contemporary public finance issues. The traditional emphasis on revenue (taxes, fees and grants) has been retained but follows rather than precedes the discussion of expenditures.




Undergraduate Introduction To Financial Mathematics, An (Second Edition)


Book Description

This textbook provides an introduction to financial mathematics and financial engineering for undergraduate students who have completed a three- or four-semester sequence of calculus courses.It introduces the Theory of Interest, discrete and continuous random variables and probability, stochastic processes, linear programming, the Fundamental Theorem of Finance, option pricing, hedging, and portfolio optimization. The reader progresses from a solid grounding in multi-variable calculus through a derivation of the Black-Scholes equation, its solution, properties, and applications.




Managing Customer Value: One Step At A Time (Second Edition)


Book Description

How do you take an individual who has never done business with your organization and gradually transform them into the best possible customer? How do you decide how much to spend on various marketing actions? How do you think about the pricing decision with a view to optimizing the value of your customers as assets? Where do you start, what tools do you use, and what heuristics are useful in making these decisions? This book attempts to answer questions such as these. The one-sentence summary of the answer, though, is simple — hold the individual's hands and walk them up a value ladder, one step at a time.This book is written for an advanced student of business and the practicing manager. It presents an integrated view of the marketing function. In particular, it focuses on all the activities that a firm engages in to create and manage value - not just the customer-facing activities. It links the traditional views of customer value with the finance, accounting, human resources, organizational behaviour, information technology and operations functions of the organization. It draws on the science of behaviour change and the data sciences to present a contemporary view of the customer value function. The content is meant to be prescriptive — it describes a process for value creation and management, yet analytical; theoretical, yet empirically driven. It urges the reader to think about the customer value function to be organized along activities that the firm would like the customers to engage in, not activities that the firm engages in. It presents a framework that is not only conceptually driven but also has a sound mathematical basis.




Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology, Second Edition


Book Description

"This set of books represents a detailed compendium of authoritative, research-based entries that define the contemporary state of knowledge on technology"--Provided by publisher.




Economic Growth And Development (Second Edition)


Book Description

This textbook covers the full range of topics and issues normally included in a course on economic growth and development. Both mainstream economic perspectives as well as the multi-paradigmatic, inter-disciplinary, and dynamic-evolutionary perspectives from heterodox economics are detailed. Economic development is viewed in terms of the long-run well-being of humanity, social stability, environmental sustainability, and just distribution of economic gains, not simply as the growth of GDP. Furthermore, this textbook explicitly recognizes the complexity of economic development by linking economic activity to our broader social and natural environments.The textbook's unique feature is its focus on the natural environment. Both the historical effects of economic development on the environment and the environmental constraints on future economic development are thoroughly discussed in two chapters on environmental issues and policies. In fact, because economic development is defined in terms of economic, social, and environmental sustainability, the natural environment is included in discussions throughout the book.The textbook is inter-disciplinary: knowledge from fields such as sociology, psychology, political science, economic history, and ecology is called on to enhance the economic analysis. A thorough historical account of the development of the principal paradigms of economic development is also included, and the important issues of institutional development and cultural change merit their own chapters. Two chapters on technological change holistically focus on production technologies as well as the dynamic performance of entire economic, social, and ecological systems. Also, the important relationship between economic development and globalization is presented in three chapters on international trade, international finance and investment, and immigration from both orthodox and heterodox perspectives.




Basic Cost Benefit Analysis for Assessing Local Public Projects, Second Edition


Book Description

The cost benefit technique is so often referenced in government policy that a correct understanding is necessary for officials entrusted with public decisions. This book presents essential elements for understanding, interpreting, and conducting cost benefit analysis (CBA) in the context of local government. If you’re charged with preparing numerical analyses to assess the worthiness of a specific policy proposal, you’ll need this book to understand how costs and benefits are identified and analyzed in terms of economic efficiency and resource allocation. CBA is rooted in and has little or no value apart from the economic concepts of cost and resource efficiency. This book is designed to teach the correct use and interpretation of cost benefit analysis, while advising you of CBA’s limitations and pitfalls. Case studies, presented in the final chapters of this book, represent typical proposals confronted by local officials. The book also includes instructions for using computer spreadsheets to build basic cost benefit models and an appendix on the step-by-step process of discounting future costs and benefits.