Download or read book Lecturing Birds on Flying written by Pablo Triana and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2009-06-09 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: LECTURING BIRDS ON FLYING For the past few decades, the financial world has often displayed an unreasonable willingness to believe that "the model is right, the market is wrong," in spite of the fact that these theoretical machinations were largely responsible for the stock market crash of 1987, the LTCM crisis of 1998, the credit crisis of 2008, and many other blow-ups, large and small. Why have both financial insiders (traders, risk managers, executives) and outsiders (academics, journalists, regulators, the public) consistently demonstrated a willingness to treat quantifications as gospel? Nassim Taleb first addressed the conflicts between theoretical and real finance in his technical treatise on options, Dynamic Hedging. Now, in Lecturing Birds on Flying, Pablo Triana offers a powerful indictment on the trustworthiness of financial theory, explaining—in jargon-free plain English—how malfunctions in these quantitative machines have wreaked havoc in our real world. Triana first analyzes the fundamental question of whether financial markets can in principle really be solved mathematically. He shows that the markets indeed cannot be tamed with equations, presenting a long and powerful list of obstacles to prove his point: maverick unlawful human actions rule the markets, unexpected and unimaginable events shape the markets, and historical data is not necessarily a trustworthy guide to the future of the markets. The author then examines the sources of origin of many prevalent theories and mathematical dictums. He details how the field of financial economics evolved from a descriptive discipline to an abstract one dedicated to technically concocting professors' own versions of how such a world should work. He goes on to explain how Wall Street and other financial centers became eager employers of scientists, and how scientists became eager employees of financial firms. Triana concludes with an in-depth discussion of the most significant historical episodes of theory-caused real-life market malaise, with a strong emphasis on the current credit crisis. In the end, Lecturing Birds on Flying calls for the radical substitution of good old-fashioned common sense in place of mathematical decision-making and the restoration to financial power of those who are completely unchained to the iron ball of classroom-obtained qualifications.

Download or read book Lecturing Birds on Flying written by Pablo Triana and published by . This book was released on 2010-01-08 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This print pack contains Lecturing Birds on Flying: Can Mathematical Theories Destroy the Financial Markets? + Savage / Flaw of Averages.

Download or read book Lecturing Birds on Flying written by Pablo Triana and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2009-06-08 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: LECTURING BIRDS ON FLYING For the past few decades, the financial world has often displayed an unreasonable willingness to believe that "the model is right, the market is wrong," in spite of the fact that these theoretical machinations were largely responsible for the stock market crash of 1987, the LTCM crisis of 1998, the credit crisis of 2008, and many other blow-ups, large and small. Why have both financial insiders (traders, risk managers, executives) and outsiders (academics, journalists, regulators, the public) consistently demonstrated a willingness to treat quantifications as gospel? Nassim Taleb first addressed the conflicts between theoretical and real finance in his technical treatise on options, Dynamic Hedging. Now, in Lecturing Birds on Flying, Pablo Triana offers a powerful indictment on the trustworthiness of financial theory, explaining—in jargon-free plain English—how malfunctions in these quantitative machines have wreaked havoc in our real world. Triana first analyzes the fundamental question of whether financial markets can in principle really be solved mathematically. He shows that the markets indeed cannot be tamed with equations, presenting a long and powerful list of obstacles to prove his point: maverick unlawful human actions rule the markets, unexpected and unimaginable events shape the markets, and historical data is not necessarily a trustworthy guide to the future of the markets. The author then examines the sources of origin of many prevalent theories and mathematical dictums. He details how the field of financial economics evolved from a descriptive discipline to an abstract one dedicated to technically concocting professors' own versions of how such a world should work. He goes on to explain how Wall Street and other financial centers became eager employers of scientists, and how scientists became eager employees of financial firms. Triana concludes with an in-depth discussion of the most significant historical episodes of theory-caused real-life market malaise, with a strong emphasis on the current credit crisis. In the end, Lecturing Birds on Flying calls for the radical substitution of good old-fashioned common sense in place of mathematical decision-making and the restoration to financial power of those who are completely unchained to the iron ball of classroom-obtained qualifications.

Download or read book Antifragile written by Nassim Nicholas Taleb and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2014-01-28 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Antifragile is a standalone book in Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s landmark Incerto series, an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision-making in a world we don’t understand. The other books in the series are Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, Skin in the Game, and The Bed of Procrustes. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the bestselling author of The Black Swan and one of the foremost thinkers of our time, reveals how to thrive in an uncertain world. Just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension, and rumors or riots intensify when someone tries to repress them, many things in life benefit from stress, disorder, volatility, and turmoil. What Taleb has identified and calls “antifragile” is that category of things that not only gain from chaos but need it in order to survive and flourish. In The Black Swan, Taleb showed us that highly improbable and unpredictable events underlie almost everything about our world. In Antifragile, Taleb stands uncertainty on its head, making it desirable, even necessary, and proposes that things be built in an antifragile manner. The antifragile is beyond the resilient or robust. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better and better. Furthermore, the antifragile is immune to prediction errors and protected from adverse events. Why is the city-state better than the nation-state, why is debt bad for you, and why is what we call “efficient” not efficient at all? Why do government responses and social policies protect the strong and hurt the weak? Why should you write your resignation letter before even starting on the job? How did the sinking of the Titanic save lives? The book spans innovation by trial and error, life decisions, politics, urban planning, war, personal finance, economic systems, and medicine. And throughout, in addition to the street wisdom of Fat Tony of Brooklyn, the voices and recipes of ancient wisdom, from Roman, Greek, Semitic, and medieval sources, are loud and clear. Antifragile is a blueprint for living in a Black Swan world. Erudite, witty, and iconoclastic, Taleb’s message is revolutionary: The antifragile, and only the antifragile, will make it. Praise for Antifragile “Ambitious and thought-provoking . . . highly entertaining.”—The Economist “A bold book explaining how and why we should embrace uncertainty, randomness, and error . . . It may just change our lives.”—Newsweek

Download or read book Fooled by Randomness written by Nassim Nicholas Taleb and published by Editeurs divers USA. This book was released on 2016 with total page 1570 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nassim Nicholas Taleb's landmark Incerto series is an investigation of luck, uncertainty, probability, opacity, human error, risk, disorder, and decision-making in a world we don't understand, in nonoverlapping and standalone books. All four volumes--Antifragile, The Black Swan, Fooled by Randomness, and the expanded edition of The Bed of Procrustes, updated with more than 50 percent new material--are now together in one boxed set. ANTIFRAGILE "Startling . . . richly crammed with insights, stories, fine phrases and intriguing asides."--The Wall Street Journal Just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension, many things in life benefit from disorder, volatility, and turmoil. What Taleb has identified and calls "antifragile" is that category of things that not only gain from chaos but need it in order to survive and flourish. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better and better. What is crucial is that the antifragile loves errors, as it incurs small harm and large benefits from them. Spanning politics, urban planning, war, personal finance, economic systems, and medicine in an interdisciplinary and erudite style, Antifragile is a blueprint for living in a Black Swan world. THE BLACK SWAN "[A book] that altered modern thinking."--The Times (London) A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random and more predictable. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. In this groundbreaking and prophetic book, Taleb shows that black swan events underlie almost everything about our world, from the rise of religions to events in our own personal lives, and yet we--especially the experts--are blind to them. FOOLED BY RANDOMNESS "[Fooled by Randomness] is to conventional Wall Street wisdom approximately what Martin Luther's ninety-five theses were to the Catholic Church."--Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker Are we capable of distinguishing the fortunate charlatan from the genuine visionary? Must we always try to uncover nonexistent messages in random events? Fooled by Randomness is about luck: more precisely, about how we perceive luck in our personal and professional experiences. Set against the backdrop of the most conspicuous forum in which luck is mistaken for skill--the markets--Fooled by Randomness is an irreverent, eye-opening, and endlessly entertaining exploration of one of the least understood forces in our lives. THE BED OF PROCRUSTES "Taleb's crystalline nuggets of thought stand alone like esoteric poems."--Financial Times This collection of aphorisms and meditations expresses Taleb's major ideas in ways you least expect. The Bed of Procrustes takes its title from Greek mythology: the story of a man who made his visitors fit his bed to perfection by either stretching them or cutting their limbs. With a rare combination of pointed wit and potent wisdom, Taleb plows through human illusions, contrasting the classical views of courage, elegance, and erudition against the modern diseases of nerdiness, philistinism, and phoniness.

Download or read book Incerto written by Nassim Nicholas Taleb and published by Random House Trade. This book was released on 2021-05-04 with total page 1873 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The landmark five-book series--all together in one boxed set The Incerto is an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision making when we don't understand the world, expressed in the form of a personal essay with autobiographical sections, stories, parables, and philosophical, historical, and scientific discussions, in non-overlapping volumes that can be accessed in any order. The main thread is that while there is inordinate uncertainty about what is going on, there is great certainty as to what one should do about it. This boxed set includes: FOOLED BY RANDOMNESS THE BLACK SWAN THE BED OF PROCRUSTES ANTIFRAGILE SKIN IN THE GAME

Download or read book Incerto 5 Book Bundle written by Nassim Nicholas Taleb and published by Random House. This book was released on 2021-05-04 with total page 1345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The landmark five-book series—all together in one ebook bundle The Incerto is an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision making when we don’t understand the world, expressed in the form of a personal essay with autobiographical sections, stories, parables, and philosophical, historical, and scientific discussions, in non-overlapping volumes that can be accessed in any order. The main thread is that while there is inordinate uncertainty about what is going on, there is great certainty as to what one should do about it. This ebook bundle includes: FOOLED BY RANDOMNESS THE BLACK SWAN THE BED OF PROCRUSTES ANTIFRAGILE SKIN IN THE GAME

Download or read book Incerto 4 Book Bundle written by Nassim Nicholas Taleb and published by Random House. This book was released on 2016-01-26 with total page 1377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s landmark Incerto series is an investigation of luck, uncertainty, probability, opacity, human error, risk, disorder, and decision-making in a world we don’t understand, in nonoverlapping and standalone books. All four volumes—Antifragile, The Black Swan, Fooled by Randomness, and the expanded edition of The Bed of Procrustes, updated with more than 50 percent new material—are now together in one ebook bundle. ANTIFRAGILE “Startling . . . richly crammed with insights, stories, fine phrases and intriguing asides.”—The Wall Street Journal Just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension, many things in life benefit from disorder, volatility, and turmoil. What Taleb has identified and calls “antifragile” is that category of things that not only gain from chaos but need it in order to survive and flourish. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better and better. What is crucial is that the antifragile loves errors, as it incurs small harm and large benefits from them. Spanning politics, urban planning, war, personal finance, economic systems, and medicine in an interdisciplinary and erudite style, Antifragile is a blueprint for living in a Black Swan world. THE BLACK SWAN “[A book] that altered modern thinking.”—The Times (London) A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random and more predictable. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. In this groundbreaking and prophetic book, Taleb shows that black swan events underlie almost everything about our world, from the rise of religions to events in our own personal lives, and yet we—especially the experts—are blind to them. FOOLED BY RANDOMNESS “[Fooled by Randomness] is to conventional Wall Street wisdom approximately what Martin Luther’s ninety-five theses were to the Catholic Church.”—Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker Are we capable of distinguishing the fortunate charlatan from the genuine visionary? Must we always try to uncover nonexistent messages in random events? Fooled by Randomness is about luck: more precisely, about how we perceive luck in our personal and professional experiences. Set against the backdrop of the most conspicuous forum in which luck is mistaken for skill—the markets—Fooled by Randomness is an irreverent, eye-opening, and endlessly entertaining exploration of one of the least understood forces in our lives. THE BED OF PROCRUSTES “Taleb’s crystalline nuggets of thought stand alone like esoteric poems.”—Financial Times This collection of aphorisms and meditations expresses Taleb’s major ideas in ways you least expect. The Bed of Procrustes takes its title from Greek mythology: the story of a man who made his visitors fit his bed to perfection by either stretching them or cutting their limbs. With a rare combination of pointed wit and potent wisdom, Taleb plows through human illusions, contrasting the classical views of courage, elegance, and erudition against the modern diseases of nerdiness, philistinism, and phoniness.

Download or read book Managing for Success written by Morgen Witzel and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-04-23 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The damage that incompetent managers do is incalculable. Every year they wipe tens of billions off the value of companies around the world. But the routinely incompetent behaviour that leads to failure is often covered up, incompetent managers are paid off and the causes of failure are swept under the carpet. Yet, most of these failures could have been avoided if only we knew how to spot the signs of incompetence in advance, and take steps to prevent it happening. Prevention is always better, and cheaper, than cure. Morgen Witzel tackles the problem of incompetence in the round by exploring the political, cultural, psychological and personal factors that lead to incompetency at every level of business. Arrogance, excessive reliance on formal plans and metrics, lack of professional pride, and poor and misguided business education and training are among the problems that drag businesses down. Using international case studies from Ford Motor Company, Royal Ahold and Lehman Brothers, practical solutions are provided for avoiding incompetence by changing the culture within organizations and the ways in which managers are trained and developed to truly manage for success and minimise failure.

Download or read book A History of Management Thought written by Morgen Witzel and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-03-29 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the past three thousand years people have been thinking about the problems of management. This book shows how thinking about management has evolved and changed. It shows how changing social, political and technological forces have challenged people to think about management in new ways, and how management thinkers have responded. Sometimes their responses missed the mark and occasionally, great ideas about management failed to be picked up and were lost along the way. Sometimes, truly original and creative, even world-changing ideas appeared. Following key currents in management thought from the origins of civilization to the present day, the book begins in the ancient world, when people were wrestling with the problems of organization and leadership. It continues through the Middle Ages, east and west, as people pondered on how to manage risk and think strategically, and on the role of business in society. It shows how the Industrial Revolution led to the emergence of scientific management, and how political and social events of the twentieth century shaped management thinking right up to the present day. From the pyramids to Facebook, from military strategy to managing for sustainability, A History of Management Thought tells the fascinating story of how management thinking has changed, shifted, evolved and developed down through the centuries. Students taking classes in the history of management thought will find this text to be the perfect accompaniment to their studies and will be a captivating read for anyone else.

Download or read book Economyths written by David Orrell and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2010-08-16 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the inability of wealth to make us happier, to our catastrophic blindness to the credit crunch, Economyths reveals ten ways in which economics has failed us all. Forecasters predicted a prosperous year in 2008 for financial markets - in one influential survey the average prediction was for an eleven percent gain. But by the end of the year, the Standard and Poor's 500 index - a key economic barometer - was down 38 percent, and major economies were plunging into recession. Even the Queen asked - "Why did no one see it coming?" An even bigger casualty was the credibility of economics, which for decades has claimed that the economy is a rational, stable, efficient machine, governed by well-understood laws. Mathematician David Orrell traces the history of this idea from its roots in ancient Greece to the financial centres of London and New York, shows how it is mistaken, and proposes new alternatives. Economyths explains how the economy is the result of complex and unpredictable processes; how risk models go astray; why the economy is not rational or fair; why no woman has ever won the Nobel Prize for economics; why financial crashes are less Black Swans than part of the landscape; and finally, how new ideas in mathematics, psychology, and environmentalism are helping to reinvent economics.

Download or read book The Number That Killed Us written by Pablo Triana and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-11-01 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A critical look at the risk measurement tool that has repeatedly hurt the financial world The Number That Killed Us finally tells the "greatest story never told": how a mysterious financial risk measurement model has ruled the world for the past two decades and how it has repeatedly, and severely, caused market, economic, and social turmoil. This model was the key factor behind the unleashing of the cataclysmic credit crisis that erupted in 2007 and which the effects are still being felt around the world. The Number That Killed Us is the first and only book to thoroughly explain this hitherto-uncovered phenomenon, making it the key reference for truly understanding why the malaise took place. The very number financial institutions and regulators use to measure risk (Vale at Risk/VaR) has masked it, allowing firms to leverage up their speculative bets to unimaginable levels. VaR sanctioned and allowed the monstrously geared toxic punts that sank Wall Street, and the world, during the latest crisis. We can confidently say that VaR was the culprit. In The Number That Killed Us, derivatives expert Pablo Triana takes you through the development of VaR and shows how its inevitable structural flaws allowed banks to take on even greater risks. The precise role of VaR in igniting the latest crisis is thoroughly covered, including in-depth analysis of how and why regulators, by falling in love with the tool, condemned us to chaos. Uncritically embraced worldwide for way too long, VaR is, in the face of such destruction, just starting to be examined as problematic, and in this book Triana (long an open critic of the tool's role in encouraging mayhem) uncovers exactly why it makes our financial world a more dangerous place. If we care for our safety, we should let VaR go. Contains controversial analysis of the hotly debated risk metric Value at Risk (VaR) and its central role in the credit crisis Denounces the role of regulators and academics in forcing the presence of the inevitably malfunctioning in financeland Describes how bonus-hungry traders can use VaR as an alibi to take on the most reckless of bets Reveals how the most recent financial crisis will simply repeat itself if the problems behind VaR are not unmasked Pablo Triana is also the author of Lecturing Birds on Flying The very risk measurement tool that was intended to contain risk allowed financial firms to blindly take on more. The model that was supposed to save us condemned us to misery. The Number That Killed Us reveals how this has happened and what needs to be done to correct the situation.

Download or read book The Roots and Uses of Marketing Knowledge written by Terry Smith and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2020-01-20 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marketing theory is often developed in isolation not collaboration; theoretical perspectives sometimes are ignorant of the diversity of marketing practice. In “The roots and uses of marketing knowledge: a critical inquiry into the theory and practice of marketing”, the author engages with the vital conversation about how marketing knowledge is created, disseminated and consumed, looking beyond the traditional reification of practice in theory and verification of theory in practice. The ontology of this work is anchored in subjective individual meaning; the epistemological stance assumes that this meaning is socially constructed. Consequently, rich empirical data, grounded in the context of experiential evidence, is extracted from a comprehensive range of marketing constituencies: academics, practitioners, managers, consultants, authors, lecturers and students. In its examination of the polarities, hybridity and iterative flow of marketing knowledge creation and consumption, this text posits a cohesive argument for a theory/practice bipartite fusion not dichotomy, adding valuable insights into the textual, contextual and pedagogical representations of marketing knowledge. The history and future of marketing knowledge is examined with the aid of instructive illustrations and insightful first-hand experience. Drawing on extensive qualitative research from a broad range of influential producers and vital consumers, Dr. Smith presents a relevant, exciting marketing knowledge framework which will be a vital resource for academics, students and practitioners.

Download or read book Post Crash Economics written by Omar Feraboli and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-11-21 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book demonstrates the continuing relevance of economics for understanding the world, through a restatement of the importance of plurality and heterodox ideas for teaching and research. The Great Financial Crash of 2007–8 gave rise to a widespread critique of economics for its inability to explain the most significant economic event since the 1930s. The current straightjacket of neo-classical undergraduate economic teaching and research hinders students’ understanding of the world they live in. The chapters in this book provide examples to demonstrate the importance of pluralistic and heterodox ideas from across the breadth of economics. The authors’ plurality of approach is indicative of the fact that economics is a much broader discipline than the dominant neo-classical orthodoxy would suggest. This volume provides undergraduate students with a range of alternative ideas and university lecturers with examples whereby the curricula have been broadened to include pluralist and heterodox ideas.

Download or read book Financial Market Bubbles and Crashes written by Harold L. Vogel and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-12-17 with total page 619 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Economists broadly define financial asset price bubbles as episodes in which prices rise with notable rapidity and depart from historically established asset valuation multiples and relationships. Financial economists have for decades attempted to study and interpret bubbles through the prisms of rational expectations, efficient markets, equilibrium, arbitrage, and capital asset pricing models, but they have not made much if any progress toward a consistent and reliable theory that explains how and why bubbles (and crashes) evolve and are defined, measured, and compared. This book develops a new and different approach that is based on the central notion that bubbles and crashes reflect urgent short-side rationing, which means that, as such extreme conditions unfold, considerations of quantities owned or not owned begin to displace considerations of price.

Download or read book Financial Structures and Regulation A Comparison of Crises in the UK USA and Italy written by A. Roselli and published by Springer. This book was released on 2011-11-08 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A survey of past financial crises, starting with the great banking collapses of the interwar period. The current turmoil has prompted a number of questions regarding both its origins and ways to avoid its repetition. The historical background and the evolving institutional framework of banking and financial systems are at the center of this book.

Download or read book Financial Times Guide to the Financial Markets written by Glen Arnold and published by Pearson UK. This book was released on 2012-05-14 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From bestselling author Glen Arnold, this is a jargon-busting book that describes how financial markets work, where they are located and how they impact on everyday life. It assumes no specialised prior knowledge of finance theory and provides an authoritative and comprehensive run-down of the workings of the modern financial system. Using real world examples from media such as the Financial Times, Arnold gives an international perspective on the financial markets with frequent comparisons in the workings of major financial centres such as the Bank of England and the City, the Federal Reserve System and Wall Street, the Japanese Central Bank, the European Central Bank and IMF and World Bank. The full text downloaded to your computer With eBooks you can: search for key concepts, words and phrases make highlights and notes as you study share your notes with friends eBooks are downloaded to your computer and accessible either offline through the Bookshelf (available as a free download), available online and also via the iPad and Android apps. Upon purchase, you'll gain instant access to this eBook. Time limit The eBooks products do not have an expiry date. You will continue to access your digital ebook products whilst you have your Bookshelf installed.