The first consumer credit bureaus appeared in the 1870s and quickly amassed huge archives of deeply personal information. Today, the three leading credit bureaus are among the most powerful institutions in modern life—yet we know almost nothing about them. Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion are multi-billion-dollar corporations that track our movements, spending behavior, and financial status. This data is used to predict our riskiness as borrowers and to judge our trustworthiness and value in a broad array of contexts, from insurance and marketing to employment and housing. In Creditworthy, the first comprehensive history of this crucial American institution, Josh Lauer explores the evolution of credit reporting from its nineteenth-century origins to the rise of the modern consumer data industry. By revealing the sophistication of early credit reporting networks, Creditworthy highlights the leading role that commercial surveillance has played—ahead of state surveillance systems—in monitoring the economic lives of Americans. Lauer charts how credit reporting grew from an industry that relied on personal knowledge of consumers to one that employs sophisticated algorithms to determine a person's trustworthiness. Ultimately, Lauer argues that by converting individual reputations into brief written reports—and, later, credit ratings and credit scores—credit bureaus did something more profound: they invented the modern concept of financial identity. Creditworthy reminds us that creditworthiness is never just about economic "facts." It is fundamentally concerned with—and determines—our social standing as an honest, reliable, profit-generating person.

Inflation is regarded by the many as a menace that damages business and can only make life worse for households. Keeping it low depends critically on ensuring that firms and workers expect it to be low. So expectations of inflation are a key influence on national economic welfare. This collection pulls together a galaxy of world experts (including Roy Batchelor, Richard Curtin and Staffan Linden) on inflation expectations to debate different aspects of the issues involved. The main focus of the volume is on likely inflation developments. A number of factors have led practitioners and academic observers of monetary policy to place increasing emphasis recently on inflation expectations. One is the spread of inflation targeting, invented in New Zealand over 15 years ago, but now encompassing many important economies including Brazil, Canada, Israel and Great Britain. Even more significantly, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan and the United States Federal Bank are the leading members of another group of monetary institutions all considering or implementing moves in the same direction. A second is the large reduction in actual inflation that has been observed in most countries over the past decade or so. These considerations underscore the critical – and largely underrecognized - importance of inflation expectations. They emphasize the importance of the issues, and the great need for a volume that offers a clear, systematic treatment of them. This book, under the steely editorship of Peter Sinclair, should prove very important for policy makers and monetary economists alike.

An updated and revised look at the truth behind America's housing and mortgage bubbles In the summer of 2007, the subprime empire that Wall Street had built all came crashing down. On average, fifty lenders a month were going bust-and the people responsible for the crisis included not just unregulated loan brokers and con artists, but also investment bankers and home loan institutions traditionally perceived as completely trustworthy. Chain of Blame chronicles this incredible disaster, with a specific focus on the players who participated in such a fundamentally flawed fiasco. In it, authors Paul Muolo and Mathew Padilla reveal the truth behind how this crisis occurred, including what individuals and institutions were doing during this critical time, and who is ultimately responsible for what happened. Discusses the latest revelations in the housing and mortgage crisis, including the SEC's charging of Angelo Mozilo Two well-regarded financial journalists familiar with the events that have taken place chronicle the crisis in detail, showing what happened as well as what lies ahead Discusses how the world's largest investment banks, homeowners, lenders, credit rating agencies, underwriters, and investors all became entangled in the subprime mess Intriguing and informative, Chain of Blame is a compelling story of greed and avarice, one in which many are responsible, but few are willing to admit their mistakes.

Follow the man behind Philadelphia’s celebrated Pizzeria Beddia as he takes you through the pizza-making process—from the dough to the sauce to the cheese. Joe Beddia’s pizza is old school—it’s all about the dough, sauce, cheese, and baking basics. And now, he’s offering his methods and recipes in a cookbook that’s anything but old school, teaching the foundation for making perfectly crisp, satisfyingly chewy, dangerously addictive pies at home. With more than fifty iconic and new recipes, Pizza Camp delivers everything you’ll need to make unforgettable and inventive pizza, stromboli, hoagies, and more, with plenty of vegetarian options (because even the most die-hard pizza lovers can’t eat pizza every day). In this book you will find pizza combinations that have gained Beddia’s pizzeria a cult following, alongside brand new recipes like: Dinosaur Kale, Pickled Red Onion, and Spring Cream Pizza Bintje Potato with Cream and Rosemary Speck, Collard Greens, Fontina, and Cream Roasted Corn with Heirloom Cherry Tomato and Basil Breakfast Pizza with Sausage, Eggs, Spinach, and Cream And dozens more! Designed by Walter Green, art director of Lucky Peach, and packed with drawings, neighborhood photos, and lots of humor, Pizza Camp is a novel approach to homemade pizza. “I will never forgive my parents for not sending me to Pizza Camp.” —Jimmy Kimmel, comedian/pizza eater “Never have I encountered an individual so singularly focused on his craft. Joe Beddia is hilarious, intelligent, and lovingly produces the best pizza in the f*cking universe.” —Michael Solomonov, James Beard Award–winning chef and author

Credit Scoring and Its Applications is recognized as the bible of credit scoring. It contains a comprehensive review of the objectives, methods, and practical implementation of credit and behavioral scoring. The authors review principles of the statistical and operations research methods used in building scorecards, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of each approach. The book contains a description of practical problems encountered in building, using, and monitoring scorecards and examines some of the country-specific issues in bankruptcy, equal opportunities, and privacy legislation. It contains a discussion of economic theories of consumers' use of credit, and readers will gain an understanding of what lending institutions seek to achieve by using credit scoring and the changes in their objectives. New to the second edition are lessons that can be learned for operations research model building from the global financial crisis, current applications of scoring, discussions on the Basel Accords and their requirements for scoring, new methods for scorecard building and new expanded sections on ways of measuring scorecard performance. And survival analysis for credit scoring. Other unique features include methods of monitoring scorecards and deciding when to update them, as well as different applications of scoring, including direct marketing, profit scoring, tax inspection, prisoner release, and payment of fines.