This book provides a deep insight into the market changes and policy challenges that transition economies have undergone in the last twenty years. It not only comments on and evaluates the development of financial markets in transition economies, but also highlights the key obstacles to full integration of financial markets into the EU market.

Written for undergraduate and graduate students, this textbook provides a fresh analysis of the European financial system.

In recent years the finance industry has mushroomed to become an important part of modern economies, and many science and engineering graduates have joined the industry as quantitative analysts, with mathematical and computational skills that are needed to solve complex problems of asset valuation and risk management. An important parallel story exists of scientific endeavour. Between 1965-1995, insightful ideas in economics about asset valuation were turned into a mathematical 'theory of arbitrage', an enterprise whose first achievement was the famous 1973 Black-Scholes formula, followed by extensive investigations using all the resources of modern analysis and probability. The growth of the finance industry proceeded hand-in-hand with these developments. Now new challenges arise to deal with the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis and to take advantage of new technology, which has revolutionized the practice of trading. This Very Short Introduction introduces readers with no previous background in this area to arbitrage theory and why it works the way it does. Illuminating pricing theory, Mark Davis explains its applications to interest rates, credit trading, fund management and risk management. He concludes with a survey of the most pressing issues in mathematical finance today. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Comprehensive 200-page overview of the ECB from its inception in June 1998 until the present day.

Winner of the 2010 Hayek Book Prize given by the Manhattan Institute "Money, Markets and Sovereignty is a surprisingly easy read, given the complicated issues covered. In it, Mr. Steil and Mr. Hinds consistently challenge today's statist nostrums."—Doug Bandow, The Washington Times In this keenly argued book, Benn Steil and Manuel Hinds offer the most powerful defense of economic liberalism since F. A. Hayek published The Road to Serfdom more than sixty years ago. The authors present a fascinating intellectual history of monetary nationalism from the ancient world to the present and explore why, in its modern incarnation, it represents the single greatest threat to globalization. Steil and Hinds describe the current state of international economic relations as both unusual and precarious. Eras of economic protectionism have historically coincided with monetary nationalism, while eras of liberal trade have been accompanied by a universal monetary standard. But today, the authors show, an unprecedentedly liberal global trade regime operates side by side with the most extreme doctrine of monetary nationalism ever contrived—a situation bound to trigger periodic crises. Steil and Hinds call for a revival of the political and economic thinking that underlay earlier great periods of globalization, thinking that is increasingly under threat by more recent ideas about what sovereignty means.

The first twenty years of the European Central Bank offer a unique insight into how a central bank can navigate macroeconomic insecurity and crisis. This volume examines the structures and decision-making processes behind the complex measures taken by the ECB to tackle some of the toughest economic challenges in the history of modern Europe.

In 2011 the World Bank—with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—launched the Global Findex database, the world's most comprehensive data set on how adults save, borrow, make payments, and manage risk. Drawing on survey data collected in collaboration with Gallup, Inc., the Global Findex database covers more than 140 economies around the world. The initial survey round was followed by a second one in 2014 and by a third in 2017. Compiled using nationally representative surveys of more than 150,000 adults age 15 and above in over 140 economies, The Global Findex Database 2017: Measuring Financial Inclusion and the Fintech Revolution includes updated indicators on access to and use of formal and informal financial services. It has additional data on the use of financial technology (or fintech), including the use of mobile phones and the Internet to conduct financial transactions. The data reveal opportunities to expand access to financial services among people who do not have an account—the unbanked—as well as to promote greater use of digital financial services among those who do have an account. The Global Findex database has become a mainstay of global efforts to promote financial inclusion. In addition to being widely cited by scholars and development practitioners, Global Findex data are used to track progress toward the World Bank goal of Universal Financial Access by 2020 and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The database, the full text of the report, and the underlying country-level data for all figures—along with the questionnaire, the survey methodology, and other relevant materials—are available at www.worldbank.org/globalfindex.

This book builds on a year-long discussion with a group of academics, policy-makers and industry experts to provide a long-term contribution to the Capital Markets Union project, launched by the European Commission in 2015. It identifies 36 cross-border barriers to capital mar...

This book offers a timely review of cutting-edge applications of computational intelligence to business management and financial analysis. It covers a wide range of intelligent and optimization techniques, reporting in detail on their application to real-world problems relating to portfolio management and demand forecasting, decision making, knowledge acquisition, and supply chain scheduling and management.