Download or read book An Engine Not a Camera written by Donald MacKenzie and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2008-08-29 with total page 782 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In An Engine, Not a Camera, Donald MacKenzie argues that the emergence of modern economic theories of finance affected financial markets in fundamental ways. These new, Nobel Prize-winning theories, based on elegant mathematical models of markets, were not simply external analyses but intrinsic parts of economic processes. Paraphrasing Milton Friedman, MacKenzie says that economic models are an engine of inquiry rather than a camera to reproduce empirical facts. More than that, the emergence of an authoritative theory of financial markets altered those markets fundamentally. For example, in 1970, there was almost no trading in financial derivatives such as "futures." By June of 2004, derivatives contracts totaling $273 trillion were outstanding worldwide. MacKenzie suggests that this growth could never have happened without the development of theories that gave derivatives legitimacy and explained their complexities. MacKenzie examines the role played by finance theory in the two most serious crises to hit the world's financial markets in recent years: the stock market crash of 1987 and the market turmoil that engulfed the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management in 1998. He also looks at finance theory that is somewhat beyond the mainstream—chaos theorist Benoit Mandelbrot's model of "wild" randomness. MacKenzie's pioneering work in the social studies of finance will interest anyone who wants to understand how America's financial markets have grown into their current form.

Download or read book Post Walrasian Macroeconomics written by David Colander and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006-07-17 with total page 33 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Macroeconomics is evolving in an almost dialectic fashion. The latest evolution is the development of a new synthesis that combines insights of new classical, new Keynesian and real business cycle traditions into a dynamic, stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model that serves as a foundation for thinking about macro policy. That new synthesis has opened up the door to a new antithesis, which is being driven by advances in computing power and analytic techniques. This new synthesis is coalescing around developments in complexity theory, automated general to specific econometric modeling, agent-based models, and non-linear and statistical dynamical models. This book thus provides the reader with an introduction to what might be called a Post Walrasian research program that is developing as the antithesis of the Walrasian DSGE synthesis.

Download or read book Sustainable Security written by Jeremi Suri and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can the United States craft a sustainable national security strategy in a world of shifting threats, sharp resource constraints, and a changing balance of power? This volume brings together research on this question from political science, history, and political economy, aiming to inform both future scholarship and strategic decision-making.

Download or read book American Power after the Financial Crisis written by Jonathan Kirshner and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2014-09-08 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The global financial crisis of 2007–2008 was both an economic catastrophe and a watershed event in world politics. In American Power after the Financial Crisis, Jonathan Kirshner explains how the crisis altered the international balance of power, affecting the patterns and pulse of world politics. The crisis, Kirshner argues, brought about an end to what he identifies as the "second postwar American order" because it undermined the legitimacy of the economic ideas that underpinned that order—especially those that encouraged and even insisted upon uninhibited financial deregulation. The crisis also accelerated two existing trends: the relative erosion of the power and political influence of the United States and the increased political influence of other states, most notably, but not exclusively, China.Looking ahead, Kirshner anticipates a "New Heterogeneity" in thinking about how best to manage domestic and international money and finance. These divergences—such as varying assessments of and reactions to newly visible vulnerabilities in the American economy and changing attitudes about the long-term appeal of the dollar—will offer a bold challenge to the United States and its essentially unchanged disposition toward financial policy and regulation. This New Heterogeneity will contribute to greater discord among nations about how best to manage the global economy. A provocative look at how the 2007–2008 economic collapse diminished U.S. dominance in world politics, American Power after the Financial Crisis suggests that the most significant and lasting impact of the crisis and the Great Recession will be the inability of the United States to enforce its political and economic priorities on an increasingly recalcitrant world.

Download or read book Securities Market Issues for the 21st Century written by Merritt B. Fox and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Reconstruction of Economic Theory written by Philip Mirowski and published by Springer. This book was released on 2007-06-30 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The mandate given to the editor of the present volume was succinct and to the point: gather together some of the most recent attempts to remake economic theory at its most fundamental levels, and avoid the two debased brands of academic revolutions. Now, anyone would have realized that this would be a devilishly difficult task, more likely than not to backfire; but, in retrospect, the editor still marvels at the complacency with which he embarked on the enterprise. It was quite easy to identify the critics of conventional economics who had little more than criticism to offer; it was much more difficult to feel certain that he had actually stumbled upon a substantive divergence from the orthodoxy that appeared to promise further fruitful developments. ... Forewarned and forearmed, the prospective reader should then be equipped to judge for him- or herself whether truth in advertising has been further abused, or if something a little more interesting and entertaining is afoot."--Pages 1-2

Download or read book Political Economy in Haiti written by Simon M. Fass and published by Transaction Publishers. This book was released on 1988-01-01 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This important study introduces the conceptual premise that families, like firms, analyze their circumstances, make decisions, and pursue courses of action on the basis of what they perceive to be the most efficient methods for producing and reproducing survival. Combining this premise with an extraordinary assemblage of facts gleaned over the period of a decade from the streets, markets and homes of Port-au-Prince, the author weaves a tapestry of despair and hope which only an unusual degree of intimacy with the details of everyday life in the city could provide. The result is a considerable deepening of understanding about the politics and economics by which family members earn their livelihoods, distribute resources within and between households, produce life and labor from food and water, provide shelter and schooling for themselves, and borrow money to finance these and other activities. These different dimensions of daily existence form a web of interdependency in which change in any one dimension causes change in all the others. As Professor Pass's work demonstrates, research and development assistance practices of public and private organizations, in such areas as employment, health, housing, education and credit are often irrelevant. This is because they are necessarily guided by prevailing concepts and theories with respect to the circumstances of the urban poor, which sometimes do the poor considerable disservice. With the additional insight provided by a decade of participation in the design of policies, programs and projects serving as a tempering influence, the author does not leap to easy criticism of prevailing views and practices. He notes that ideas and interventions change in response to new understanding, sometimes in ways that the producers of such understanding could never have imagined. The problem is that change is painfully slow, and in desperately poor countries like Haiti, waiting for change exacts an almost intolerable price from the poor. This book is a provocative yet highly original contribution which will require serious attention from scholars and practitioners of development. Appearing as it does soon after the great seaward exodus of Haitians and urban unrest culminating in the flight of the Duvalier family, this timely volume will provide illumination for those seeking to understand the circumstances that press people to risk all in the name of survival.

Download or read book Understanding Social Networks written by Charles Kadushin and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-01-19 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understanding Social Networks explains the big ideas that underlie social networks, covering fundamental concepts then discussing networks and their core themes in increasing order of complexity.

Download or read book Engineering Risk and Finance written by Charles S. Tapiero and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-02-13 with total page 518 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Risk models are models of uncertainty, engineered for some purposes. They are “educated guesses and hypotheses” assessed and valued in terms of well-defined future states and their consequences. They are engineered to predict, to manage countable and accountable futures and to provide a frame of reference within which we may believe that “uncertainty is tamed”. Quantitative-statistical tools are used to reconcile our information, experience and other knowledge with hypotheses that both serve as the foundation of risk models and also value and price risk. Risk models are therefore common to most professions, each with its own methods and techniques based on their needs, experience and a wisdom accrued over long periods of time. This book provides a broad and interdisciplinary foundation to engineering risks and to their financial valuation and pricing. Risk models applied in industry and business, heath care, safety, the environment and regulation are used to highlight their variety while financial valuation techniques are used to assess their financial consequences. This book is technically accessible to all readers and students with a basic background in probability and statistics (with 3 chapters devoted to introduce their elements). Principles of risk measurement, valuation and financial pricing as well as the economics of uncertainty are outlined in 5 chapters with numerous examples and applications. New results, extending classical models such as the CCAPM are presented providing insights to assess the risks and their price in an interconnected, dependent and strategic economic environment. In an environment departing from the fundamental assumptions we make regarding financial markets, the book provides a strategic/game-like approach to assess the risk and the opportunities that such an environment implies. To control these risks, a strategic-control approach is developed that recognizes that many risks resulting by “what we do” as well as “what others do”. In particular we address the strategic and statistical control of compliance in large financial institutions confronted increasingly with a complex and far more extensive regulation.

Download or read book Debunking Economics written by Steve Keen and published by Zed Books. This book was released on 2001-07-28 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the score card for economics at the start of the new millennium? While there are many different schools of economic thought, it is the neo-classical school, with its alleged understanding and simplistic advocacy of the market, that has become equated in the public mind with economics. This book shows that virtually every aspect of conventional neo-classical economics' thinking is intellectually unsound. Steve Keen draws on an impressive array of advanced critical thinking. He constitutes a profound critique of the principle concepts, theories, and methodologies of the mainstream discipline. Keen raises grave doubts about economics' pretensions to established scientific status and its reliability as a guide to understanding the real world of economic life and its policy-making.

Download or read book Inside the Economist s Mind written by Paul A. Samuelson and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2009-02-09 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By focusing on the human side as well as the intellectualdimensions of how economists work and think, this collection ofinterviews with top economists of the 20th century becomes astartling and lively introduction to the modern world ofmacroeconomics. A fun read! For more information, frequent updates, and to comment on theforthcoming book, visit William A. Barnett's weblog athttp://economistmind.blogspot.com/. Acclaim for Inside the Economist's Mind "In candid interviews, these great economists prove to befabulous story tellers of their lives and times. Unendinglygripping for insiders, this book should also help non-specialistsunderstand how economists think." Professor Julio Rotemberg, Harvard University Business School,and Editor, Review of Economics and Statistics. "Economics used to be called the 'dismal science'. It will beimpossible for anybody to hold that view anymore ... This isscience with flesh and blood, and a lot of fascinating stories thatyou will find nowhere else." Dr. Jean-Pascal Bénassy, Paris-Jourdan SciencesÉconomiques, Paris, France "This book provides a rare and intriguing view of the personaland professional lives of leading economists ... It is like ABeautiful Mind, scaled by a factor of 16 [the number ofinterviews in the book]." Professor Lee Ohanian, University of California at LosAngeles " ... if you want an insider view of how economics has beendeveloping in the last decades, this is the (only) book foryou." Professor Giancarlo Gandolfo, University of Rome ‘LaSapienza,’ Rome "Here we see the HUMAN side of path-breaking research, thepersonalities and pitfalls, the DRAMA behind the science." Professor Francis X. Diebold, University of Pennsylvania,Philadelphia

Download or read book The Theory of Probability written by Hans Reichenbach and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1971 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Money and Government written by Robert Skidelsky and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2018-11-13 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A critical examination of economics' past and future, and how it needs to change, by one of the most eminent political economists of our time The dominant view in economics is that money and government should play only minor roles in economic life. Economic outcomes, it is claimed, are best left to the "invisible hand" of the market. Yet these claims remain staunchly unsettled. The view taken in this important new book is that the omnipresence of uncertainty makes money and government essential features of any market economy. Since Adam Smith, classical economics has espoused non-intervention in markets. The Great Depression brought Keynesian economics to the fore; but stagflation in the 1970s brought a return to small-state orthodoxy. The 2008 global financial crash should have brought a reevaluation of that stance; instead the response has been punishing austerity and anemic recovery. This book aims to reintroduce Keynes’s central insights to a new generation of economists, and embolden them to return money and government to the starring roles in the economic drama that they deserve.

Download or read book The Ages of American Law written by Grant Gilmore and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2015-01-13 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following its publication in 1974, Grant Gilmore's compact portrait of the development of American law from the eighteenth century to the mid-twentieth century became a classic. In this new edition, the portrait is brought up to date with a new chapter by Philip Bobbitt that surveys the trajectory of American law since the original publication. Bobbitt also provides a Foreword on Gilmore and the celebrated lectures that inspired The Ages of American Law. "Sharp, opinionated, and as pungent as cheddar."—New Republic "This book has the engaging qualities of good table talk among a group of sophisticated and educated friends—given body by broad learning and a keen imagination and spiced with wit."—Willard Hurst

Download or read book Natural Images in Economic Thought written by Philip Mirowski and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1994-07-29 with total page 640 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This 1994 book was the first collection devoted to impact of natural sciences on content and form of economics in history.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Economics written by Harold Kincaid and published by Oxford Handbooks Online. This book was released on 2009-03-26 with total page 689 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is the first comprehensive, cohesive, and accessible reference source to the philosophy of economics, presenting important new scholarship by top scholars.

Download or read book The Myth of the Rational Voter written by Bryan Caplan and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2011-08-15 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The greatest obstacle to sound economic policy is not entrenched special interests or rampant lobbying, but the popular misconceptions, irrational beliefs, and personal biases held by ordinary voters. This is economist Bryan Caplan's sobering assessment in this provocative and eye-opening book. Caplan argues that voters continually elect politicians who either share their biases or else pretend to, resulting in bad policies winning again and again by popular demand. Boldly calling into question our most basic assumptions about American politics, Caplan contends that democracy fails precisely because it does what voters want. Through an analysis of Americans' voting behavior and opinions on a range of economic issues, he makes the convincing case that noneconomists suffer from four prevailing biases: they underestimate the wisdom of the market mechanism, distrust foreigners, undervalue the benefits of conserving labor, and pessimistically believe the economy is going from bad to worse. Caplan lays out several bold ways to make democratic government work better--for example, urging economic educators to focus on correcting popular misconceptions and recommending that democracies do less and let markets take up the slack. The Myth of the Rational Voter takes an unflinching look at how people who vote under the influence of false beliefs ultimately end up with government that delivers lousy results. With the upcoming presidential election season drawing nearer, this thought-provoking book is sure to spark a long-overdue reappraisal of our elective system.