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Security Design: The Process & the Basics
Richard Grassie , and
Francis P. Gallagher
Manufacturer: Butterworth-Heinemann
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0750672315 |
Book Description
This study of the fundamental theoretical underpinnings of modern economies examines how economists define and categorize the market. It suggests that modeling a social science such as economics on the physical/mathematical sciences has created intractable problems, and that the basic structure of the theory needs rethinking.
A meticulously researched work in the field of mathematical economics and pure theory, The Invisible Hand traces the evolution of general economic equilibrium theory in its rich interaction with the physical sciences over a period of more than 150 years. The authors discuss how the "invisible hand" that balances physical processes was inspiration and model for the creation of general economic equilibrium theory.
Ingrao and Israel review fundamental concepts of the theory, showing how its early forms, strictly analogous to mechanical equilibrium, arose from the cultural atmosphere generated by Newtonianism and the French Enlightenment. They describe developments and changes in the theory from the work of Leon Walras and Vilfredo Pareto through restructuring by the Vienna group and John Von Neumann and the contributions of the Robbins group at the London School of Economics, to its current formulations in the work of Irving Fisher, Paul Samuelson, Kenneth Arrow, and Gerard Debreu.
Concluding chapters survey the results obtained in attempts to deal with questions of the existence of equilibrium, its uniqueness, and the problem of global stability. Ingrao and Israel find that the theory has arrived at a dead end, which raises serious doubts about the internal consistency of the basic model.
Bruna Ingrao is Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Sassari and Giorgio Israel is Associate Professor of Mathematics at the University of Rome.
Book Description
The jargon of economics and finance contains numerous colorful terms for market-asset prices at odds with any reasonable economic explanation. Examples include "bubble," "tulipmania," "chain letter," "Ponzi scheme," "panic," "crash," "herding," and "irrational exuberance." Although such a term suggests that an event is inexplicably crowd-driven, what it really means, claims Peter Garber, is that we have grasped a near-empty explanation rather than expend the effort to understand the event.
In this book Garber offers market-fundamental explanations for the three most famous bubbles: the Dutch Tulipmania (1634-1637), the Mississippi Bubble (1719-1720), and the closely connected South Sea Bubble (1720). He focuses most closely on the Tulipmania because it is the event that most modern observers view as clearly crazy. Comparing the pattern of price declines for initially rare eighteenth-century bulbs to that of seventeenth-century bulbs, he concludes that the extremely high prices for rare bulbs and their rapid decline reflects normal pricing behavior. In the cases of the Mississippi and South Sea Bubbles, he describes the asset markets and financial manipulations involved in these episodes and casts them as market fundamentals.
Customer Reviews:
A Good Read!.......2004-06-10
During the collapse of the so-called Internet bubble, the legendary Dutch fiscal intoxication with tulips, called tulipmania, was widely cited as a lesson from history. The financial press hyped stories of deluded Dutch farmers who mortgaged all their worldly possessions to purchase a single prize tulip bulb, only to meet financial ruin when the bubble inevitably burst. Economist Peter M. Garber dug into history, and found that most of the common wisdom about the tulipmania was false. So, if you ever wondered how Dutch investors could have been so foolish, there is a simple answer: they weren't. Famous First Bubbles clearly evolved from a series of academic papers but, nonetheless, the book is entertaining. The primary focus on the tulip bubble makes the sections on the Mississippi and South Sea Bubbles seem like afterthoughts. We recommend this to iconoclasts who enjoy debunking historical legends and to bubble watchers everywhere.
Excellent debunking of the myth about tulipmania.......2003-09-05
The author does an excellent job debunking the myth about the Dutch tulipmania from 1634 to 1637. He conducted detailed economics and historical research, and uncovered that just about everything about tulipmania as described in Charles Mackay book "Extraordinary popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" is either inaccurate, or exaggerated. The Dutch never mortgaged their entire properties for a single bulb. Also, Holland did not suffer a depression after the tulip market crashed. According to the author, very little net wealth was actually wiped out. Instead, the price of rare tulips was driven by rational economic considerations reflecting the short supply and the rising demand for this rare tulip bulb type. The price of these tulip bulbs at anyone time reflected expected investment returns from investors. Other economists have also documented that the price of tulip bulbs did go back up to similar level several centuries later associated with favorable economics change in this market.
The author goes on to further explain the rational economics fundamentals behind the Mississippi Bubble of 1719-1720 resulting from an attempt to swap French government debt for equity in a private company, financed by printing paper money. He similarly explains out in similar economics terms the South Sea Bubble of 1720 which was the equivalent of a leveraged buyout of the national debt of Great Britain. Both investment schemes ultimately collapsed, but their respective economics and strong government support at the onset gave these investment propositions very strong fundamentals. These investments are not so different than investments today in GSEs like Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, and Sallie Mae. Because of accounting irregularities, the stocks in these GSEs have recently taken a beating. But, there is no ground for talking about a GSE stock bubble.
The author has strong credentials to support his iconoclastic thesis that is not that well known by the economics establishment. He is a global strategist at Global Markets Research at Deutsche Bank and Professor of Economics at Brown University.
The Internet bubble has often been compared to the three investment bubbles mentioned above. Sadly enough, internet stock investors were by far the most foolish among investors of these four different investment bubbles. This is because at the onset the fundamentals behind internet stocks were far weaker and speculative than the ones associated with the investments associated with any of the three other bubbles.
A Good Read!.......2003-05-06
During the collapse of the so-called Internet bubble, the legendary Dutch fiscal intoxication with tulips, called tulipmania, was widely cited as a lesson from history. The financial press hyped stories of deluded Dutch farmers who mortgaged all their worldly possessions to purchase a single prize tulip bulb, only to meet financial ruin when the bubble inevitably burst. Economist Peter M. Garber dug into history, and found that most of the common wisdom about the tulipmania was false. So, if you ever wondered how Dutch investors could have been so foolish, there is a simple answer: they weren't. Famous First Bubbles clearly evolved from a series of academic papers but, nonetheless, the book is entertaining. The primary focus on the tulip bubble makes the sections on the Mississippi and South Sea Bubbles seem like afterthoughts. We from getAbstract recommend this to iconoclasts who enjoy debunking historical legends and to bubble watchers everywhere.
Good, but not very academic.......2003-02-03
Episodes as the Tulip Mania, The South See Bubble, the Crash of 1929 are going to leave a permanent trace in financial science. So they deserve close investigation. The Author has achieved to make really a very interesting and vivid one. His ideas are very controversial, but exactly they make the book amusing. However, I haven't seen anywhere in the book a formula, integral, etc. Perhaps the purpose was to give more informal treatment of the bubbles phenomena, but it will be very interesting a formal one to be made in future by fitting concrete rational expectations models in the historical data.
Vilimir Yordanov, Bulgaria
Good Topic, Poorly Written.......2000-09-23
I picked up this book with high expectations as the topic is very timely, the author has a good reputaiton, and given the size of the volume thought it would efficientyl get to the point.
While the arguements made are important they are lost in a difficult ot read academic writing style. Hence while I did get the point, I didn't enjoy the process. The three events discussed, "Tulipmania", the "Missiissippi" and "South Sea Companies" are well know within financial circles. Each carries a lore and mythology which is what perpetuates them today. Humanizing the narrative would have been a more effective way to make the points that each had logical explnations other than manias that distorted asset prices.
Finally, particularly as the author is works in contemporary finance, the book really should have a chapter on the lessons applied to today.
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Great Bubbles
Manufacturer: Pickering & Chatto Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 1851965254 |
Book Description
The early years of the eighteenth-century produced two great monuments: one, Christopher Wren's new cathedral of St Paul's, an enduring testament to principled craft and masterful construction. The other an empty fraud of such magnitude that its collapse threatened to overturn monarchies and governments. Its failure delayed the introduction of modern market economies by two generations. Yet the full scale of this monumental deceit was quietly covered up and hidden, its enduring legacy a poorly understood colloquialism: the South Sea Bubble. It was all planned by one ambitious promoter, who had decided to launch `a company for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is'. This eighteenth-century mission statement has now acquired an almost uncanny resonance: these words could aptly have been applied to the bursting of the Internet bubble and the collapse of Enron. With the financial scandals that have beset global companies recently, such as Rank Xerox and Worldcom, this tale is all the more relevant today. Balen reveals the full story of corruption and scandal that attended the birth of the first shareholder economy, and with it uncovers a parable for our times.
Customer Reviews:
An entertaining account.......2004-01-19
Balen's account of the "South Sea Bubble" is an entertaining account rather than an exhaustive historical examination of the events surrounding the South Sea Companies rise and fall in the early 18th century. This is not to say that the book lacks historical analysis and insight - but it does not qualify for the sobriquet of a "learned" text.
After a few opening pages of purple prose (through which the reader should plough through, for there is better to come) Balen sets out to paint the circumstances surrounding the "South Sea Bubble". He composes a good picture of the fevered speculation of the period, and in particular is very strong in drawing the parallels to the French experiment with paper money under Law. The view of England being drawn into a speculative frenzy in part because of the need to beat France in commerce is a neat interpretation - and Balen's researches amongst the diplomatic archives bolster the view that the bubble grew out of competition with France.
A reader familiar with analysis of the period will come across the usual clichés - the company formed for "an undertaking of Great Advantage but no-one to know what it is" makes its obligatory appearance, for instance. Alongside these crowd-pleasers, Balen also offers some interesting details of the rise of the company, and the politics surrounding it. In so short a volume, the background setting is necessarily fairly cursory. Nevertheless, the political intrigue (with Walpole cast as the Machiavelli of his day) is well written.
Overall, this text serves as an excellent, entertaining introduction to the bubble. It provides some nice analysis of the bubble in an international context. Heading each chapter is a quote from an apposite article on the internet bubble - but without further elaboration - which struck me as a nice if none too subtle commentary on the ability of human nature to forget bitter experience in the face of wanton greed. For a really serious historian of the period, there is little to be gained from this work, perhaps - but for a generalist, it serves its purpose admirably and gives an nice overview of the phenomena.
Painful and meandering.......2003-06-28
This book just moves slowly from one topic to another with no clear reason of where its going. I found it shallow on facts for the length of the book. Its like a magazine article was teased and pulled into a book.
An Excellent History of the First Great Stock Market Scandal.......2003-05-24
The Secret History of the South Seas Bubble, written by Malcolm Balen, a television journalist who has worked for the BBC and ITV, recounts the first great stock market scandal involving a purely financial company known as the South Seas Company which occurred around the year 1720 along with the Mississippi Bubble that occurred in France at about the same time.
Though a number of books have been written about the Bubble, this one is written as a narrative which revolves around three different personalities: John Law, John Blunt, and Robert Walpole. Balen uses these three and other people who lived through the time of the Bubble to give the reader an idea of what the atmosphere of those heady times were like. One quickly sees many parallels to the tech bubbles of out own time, with its grand promises of easy wealth before reality rudely crashes the party.
The Secret History is an excellent primer for those readers that have never read about the South Seas Bubble before and is very enjoyable reading even for those who are well acquainted with the facts. After reading this book, you may never see scandals like Enron, Worldcom, and others in quite the same light again.
Book Description
An unscrupulous Englishman had the notion for a company that would establish a lucrative trade in silver and spices between England and the Americas. What the investors didn't know was that the South Sea Company barely owned a ship. In this gripping account, Malcolm Balen reveals the true story of how a simple stock-share scheme became a Dickensian web of political and financial intrigue that threatened to overturn two monarchies and topple the British government. Set in the mazy back alleys of the newly inaugurated financial districts of 1720s London and Paris, The King, the Crook, and the Gambler is a lively, fast-paced, and surprisingly epic history of how the South Sea Bubble escalated into a catastrophe that made the fortunes of few and the ruin of many -- and has proved the model for every financial bubble since.
Customer Reviews:
lots left out.......2005-01-21
This book takes a seldom covered but interesting period of history and provides both an excellent and inadequate coverage of events. In some aspects, such as John Law and the Mississipi Company, the formation of the South Sea Company and in particular the political machinations following the burst, the book exceeds expectations. Unfortunately in other areas such as the demise of the company and how the government handled the financial reprecusions on the national debt, which was the entire basis of the project, on is left wanting more.
Book Description
For nearly three centuries the spectacular rise and fall of the South Sea Company has gripped the public imagination as the most graphic warning to investors of the dangers of unbridled speculation. Yet history repeats itself and the same elemental forces that drove up the price of South Sea shares to dizzying heights in 1720 have in recent years produced the global crash of 1987, the Japanese stock market bubble of the 1980s/90s, and the international dot.com boom of the 1990s.
The First Crash throws light on the current debate about investor rationality by re-examining the story of the South Sea Bubble from the standpoint of investors and commentators during and preceding the fateful Bubble year. In absorbing prose, Richard Dale describes the trading techniques of London's Exchange Alley (which included 'modern' transactions such as derivatives) and uses new data, as well as the hitherto neglected writings of a brilliant contemporary financial analyst, to show how investors lost their bearings during the Bubble period in much the same way as during the dot.com boom.
The events of 1720, as presented here, offer insights into the nature of financial markets that, being independent of place and time, deserve to be considered by today's investors everywhere. This book is therefore aimed at all those with an interest in the behavior of stock markets.
Customer Reviews:
A scholarly, technical account of the South Sea Bubble.......2006-09-18
"The First Crash" by Richard Dale deals with the lessons from the South Sea Bubble of 1720.
According to the dust jacket Dale is Emeritus Professor of International Banking at Southampton University, England. As one might expect, the book contains much technical jargon relating to capital market theory and accounting.
Dale certainly knows his subject and is up to speed with the literature - the bibliography of this 198-page book has 148 entries.
The book might appeal to students or specialists such as bankers, accountants and investment advisors, but it is hard going for the rest of us.
You almost need a financial dictionary by your side and a calculator to follow the intricacies of most of Dale's technical explanations. There is a short Glossary in the book, but it is totally inadequate.
To be fair, it is possible to skip over most of the financial detail and still get a feel for the atmosphere and activities that led to the inflation and deflation of the bubble.
Prior to reading the book I was unaware of the sophistication of financial techniques available in the 18th century. Many of the investment tools in common use today (eg options, discounted cash flow calculations, futures contracts) were available in essentially similar form then.
They were also abused in much the same way (and by people of similar character) as they were in all subsequent bubbles. Human nature never changes, and the possibility of large gain attracts the greedy, the credulous and the scoundrel.
Chapter 9 contains a technical and rather pedantic discussion of the lessons from the bubble that will be of interest to specialists, but probably not to most general readers.
If you have the skills and want to pore over the financial technicalities of the South Sea Bubble you will enjoy the book and you will benefit from Dale's impressive knowledge.
If you just want to know what happened and why it happened, there are more suitable and accessible accounts than this book.
Product Description
A lively & original history of stock market speculation from the 17th cent. to 1998. Traces the origins of the speculative spirit back to ancient Rome & chronicles its revival in the modern world: from the tulip scandal of 1630s Holland, to "stockjobbing" in London's Exchange Alley, to the infamous South Sea Bubble of 1720. Here are brokers underwriting risks such as highway robbery; lottery tickets circulating as money; wise & unwise investors such as Benjamin Disraeli & Ivan Boesky. From the Gilded Age to the Roaring 20s, from the 19th-cent. railway mania to the crash of 1929, & through to Day Traders, this book tells a fascinating story of human dreams & folly through the ages
Book Description
The focus of marketing is shifting away from transactional marketing and toward relationship marketing. Companies are beginning to recognize the economic value of stable, long-term customer relationships based on a high degree of customer satisfaction, trust, commitment, and loyalty. The book provides a comprehensive overview of both fundamentals and important recent developments in this fast-growing field. It also presents examples of successful relationship marketing in practice.
"This book makes a landmark contribution in assembling some of the best contemporary thinking about relationship marketing illustrated with concrete descriptions of companies in the automobile industry, consumer electronics, public utilities and so on, which are implementing relationship marketing. I highly recommend this to all companies who want to see what their future success will require."
Prof. Philip Kotler, Northwestern University, Illinois
Customer Reviews:
I loved this book.......2003-01-19
Scholarly, objective, well-written group of essays about loyalty by a number of writers on both sides of the Atlantic. Highly recommended.
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