Monetary-policy

In 1971, President Richard Nixon ended the convertibility of the dollar into gold and thereby scotched the mechanism of international agreements and regulations that had governed the world monetary system since the end of World War II. Over the ensuing decades, the once-stable global monetary environment became an exciting, volatile new source of risk and opportunity. Manufacturers saw their fortunes rise and fall as currency shifts favored them or, alternatively, their competitors overseas. Financial institutions discovered new opportunities and dangers in fast-moving currency markets. We recommend this book for its detailed and generally clear, albeit often tedious, introduction to the tools, techniques and strategies readers may use to manage risk or speculate in the world's biggest financial arena - the unregulated international currency market.

There is a lot of material in this book that traders should know. Some are minor details, but these are the same details that can determine whether a trade will be profitable. It is divided into three parts towards the end to suit three types of investors: (1) corporate, (2) institutional, and (3) speculator. Obviously not all three will suit you, but you can learn some things from all of them. Take a look.

This book is a well written, easy to read book on FX markets with diagrams and examples to help clarify concepts. It can be used as an initial introduction on trends and models and is excellent for those more experienced who want to review basic concepts. The only gripe I have about it is that the currency models seem very simplistic. Of course, I have the same gripe about the simplistic usage of math in all economic books.

James Buchan has written an enthralling book about the history and impact of money. He treats money as an evolving concept from early Greek writings to symbolic references in art. He considers the ability of money to speak for human desire, including its role in the primary needs to wage war and to make love. The book's style shifts from detailed historical review to literary criticism, so it is not always an easy read, but it is always fascinating. We at getAbstract recommend this book to executives who want to learn more about money's intrinsic power. Read it to learn how money shapes your world in ways you may not have considered.

James Buchan has produced a history of money: thoroughly researched, scholarly,and accurate; But also, highly opinionated, literate and a joy to read. This is not the money of the economists or the financiers...this is the money of the writers and artists..... it probably wont help you make any money, but it will give you a lot to think about. Highly recommended.

James Buchan is not apt to win friends or influence people in the world of commerce with the views put forth in this book, but he has won my undying gratitude. His strong opinions caused me to reflect deeply on the meaning of money in my own life and my responsibilties towards it. While I disagree strongly with some of his conclusions, I admire both his scholarship and his literary skills. My hat is off to this masterpiece of misarguria.

Monetary History of the US served a vital purpose when it first came out, and still has much use value. For a brief period, economists ignored the importance of variations in the nominal quantity of money to business cycles. This book provided important evidence that helped correct that error. Economists used to focus on spending rather than the money supply. This book, along with subsequent work, showed that money matters.

The most important part of this book is the section on the Great Contraction. Federal Reserve policy did contract the money supply by 1/3 during the early years of the depression. The Federal Reserve did revive the depression by increasing reserve requirements in 1937. The collapse of the banking system collapsed the real economy. The recovery of the banking system was important to the recovery of industry. Money matters.

The style of this book is excellent. Considering the sophistication of its subject matter, it is highly readable. It gets into both statistics and relevant written history. It also has a helpful appendix on the determinants of the money supply.

There are some problems with this book. Money is not all that matters. Government policies that prevented wage deflation contributed greatly to the Great Depression. Of course, this book was meant to focus on monetary history alone, as the title implies. But, readers must keep the limitations of such a narrow focus in mind when considering the explanatory power of this book. Its' authors also have too little appreciation for private banking systems (Friedman latter embraced free banking). Despite its' limitations, this book is important as a empirical source for understanding how money matters to economic conditions.

I read the reviews and found them helpful, but the unnamed reviewer that attributed the Great Depression to causes totally other than this book cites, and bashed Friedman as "not having a leg to stand on" concerned me because it seems the reviewer missed the very point of the book. Nobel prize winning economist Milton Friedman and his co-author undertook the monumental work of tracing money supply for each year for nearly a century. In doing so, they did the staggering amount of work required to show all of us something very powerful. To say they don't have a leg to stand on is disconcerting because it seems to indicate a review without a reading, or at least understanding. Obviously the Great Depression was the result of of complex interactions within the economy. What Friedman tries to do is show us the EMPIRICAL evidence for interaction between a contracting money supply and a worsening economic situation, and a steady money supply and a bettering economic situation. The Great Depression may have come about because of arrogant decisions and cascading failures, and those who decided to contract the money supply evidently were a very important trigger. I can say "evidently" because Friedman's research gives us the chance to observe the evidence for ourselves. To have advanced our knowledge of economics in a practical way, to have given useful facts for fending off depressions, is a gift. That's why this book will remain a watershed work in the history of economics.

This monumental work swept away all the now archaic notions about especially the great depression. The old rationalisms that the causes of the depression were 1) the Smoot Hawley terrif 2)over speculation in the stock market or 3)that lower interrest rates are the same as increased liquidity have been swept in to the dust bin of history repeated now only by the technically challenged.

This book covers so much in the derivatives marketplace. After being involved in the business for 12 years and writing three books on futures and commodity derivatives I was definitely refreshed and enlightened by Mr.DeRosa's book.

DeRosa has picked excellent papers. If one reads the papers in detail, the currency derivatives literature, as well as related derivatives literature, becomes very easy to understand.

This book presents highly technical papers on diverse topics from variuous academics. It would be very helpful to anyone looking to understand theoretical aspects of FX derivatives. Since most papers are written by different authors, notation is not consistent. In addition, academics do not always write like Hemingway. Nevertheless, the book covers everyhting from vanillas to exotics very well.

Wiley Investment Classics generally fall into two categories, tough and dreary reads full of information, and lively entertaining accounts which also educate. Unfortunately, Mr. Bagehot and Mr. Bernstein's text is the former. The book does an outstanding job of promoting the importance of a strong central banking system and the importance of strict credit control when combating financial crises. However, it does so amidst extremely repetitive and somewhat painful language. The authors provide outstanding quantitative and anecdotal evidence supporting their case, but they do so in such a way that makes the book a true labor to read.

This book would be very beneficial to anyone doing research on, or working for some kind of central banking organization. Otherwise, I would suggest looking to any of the other Wiley Investment Classics for a more interesting and educational read about finance.

Can a book about finance written in 1873 be helpful in a world with complex financial markets and plenty of information about how they work? The answer is yes. It is not that "Lombard Street" is a classic that one finds quoted many a time; the reader's interest should transcend historical inquiry or curiosity; "Lombard Street" should be read and revered by anyone interested in the underlying, abiding features of financial markets.

But what are those characteristics? Bagehot, then editor of The Economist, writes that credit centers on trust: "Credit means that a certain confidence is given, a certain trust reposed." And, banks always have on-demand liabilities that far exceed their readily available assets. In short, credit works on trust, and the system, in the absence of trust, can fall apart rapidly.

What follows from these premises is a careful examination of how the money market came about, what its uses are, how its operations are connected to trade and country's overall welfare, and, most importantly, how central banks can deal with financial crises. Written elegantly, "Lombard Street" is, at the same time, an introductory overview of the market and a trenchant analysis of its most salient features.

But what makes "Lombard Street" timeless is that it deals with finance in its human form. Bagehot talks about power, prestige and perception as much as he does about interest, discount, and credit. Trust is based on institutions and people: the human features of finance-trust, anxiety, mania, optimism-are timeless and apply to the financial markets of the nineteenth, twentieth, or twenty-first century. That is why "Lombard Street" is an ever useful introduction and guide.

Walter Bagehot was the first editor of the now world-famous Economist magazine, which has in many ways remained faithful to the liberal philosophy (in a European sense)of its founder. Lombard Street might be difficult to read at first, but as with Charles Dickens once you get used to the style the tale is riveting. And his advice on how a central bank, as the lender of last resort, should behave in the face of a banking crisis remains valid to this day.

Please do yourself another favour this year by not buying this textbook. The writter had a difficult time explain the meaning of money and frequency confuse what he was wrtiing in chappeters.

Having taken only a few basic econ courses in college I was looking for a book that would explain the workings of the fed in detail. My main interest is in trading. I found this book to be perfect. It was neither too simple nor too complex. Everything was cogently written and accessible to a layman. I found answers to all my questions and it's organized in a manner that chapters can be read independently of one another. It will serve as an excellent reference manual.

As a resource for undergraduate work, I found this text invaluable. If I had known of this work earlier in my academic career, it would have appeared in more of my research as a source. A must have for almost any general or specific economic study.

The authors both are long-time consultants for Visa and it is very apparent in this book. The discussion of MasterCard, Discover, and American Express is limited. The treatment of various legal actions (Nabanco, US DOJ, WalMart, duality) is one sided. There is minimal study of the economics of the business from vantage points (consumer, merchant, acquirer, Issuer, co-branding partner, etc.) other than the card association.

It's clear from some of the statistical material prsented that Visa particpated in the book.

Ever see JAG? It's about a real portrayl of the Navy & Marine Corp as this is of the card industry.

I picked up this book because I have always been interested in the history of money and the power of gold as currency. If you are fascinated by the concept of money and how it makes the world go round, Paying With Plastic will whet your appetite.

To many a layperson, paper money has intrinsic value ostensibly because it is backed by gold. That, is furthest from the centre of gravity. Since Bretton Woods, paper money has not been backed by gold and has absolutely no value. The "value" of paper money is perceived and has "value" only because governments say so and because we believe in it. In fact, paper money forms only a very small portion of the money that is in circulation. These days, money is in the form of digits, bits and bytes - expressed as numbers in some computer harddisk.

Paying With Plastic explores a new form of money and how credit cards are the latest form of money - evolving from metal coins, bills of exchange, and paper money. The book traces the early and painful development of what was initially a clumsy mode of payment to what is today one of the most effecient, organised and widespread form of payment.

Paying With Plastic is the leading book of its kind - thorough, yet readable. If you are interested in the concept of money and how the credit card system works, then this book is for you.

The authors bring disciplined methodology to the study of "industrial development," using credit cards as a case study. The book is useful not just for its anecdotal review of how credit cards got started & how they are used; and not just for the wealth of statistics it provides on how card & other payment usage has changed over the years; but most importantly, by putting some structure around all that material so that we can understand it coherently. So many books on banking & on industrial development (like things by guru Tom Peters) are just so many anecdotes strung together for 100s of pages, with no "system" for understanding what's being talked about. This book's strength is that it provides the reader with a way of interpreting not only what's in the book but with a way of understanding the incessant new developments in the industry that we read about in the trade press every day. I recommend this book highly to anyone in banking or interested in what's going on in the payments system.

I knew Bernard Lietaer as one of the world's leading authorities on complementary currencies and a chief architect of the Euro. As a former senior officer of the Belgian Central Bank and active in the domain of money systems for 25 years, his thoughts about money markets were always quite impressive. This book does an excellent job of providing a summary introduction into how money has worked and evolved in our societies.

However, given that you are reading this review and are most likely interested in monetary economics in some way, I'd also strongly recommend Lietaer's seminal work "The future of money", which he wrote while he was a fellow at UC, Berkeley. For some inadequately explored reason, only Amazon.co.uk seems to have the book on their database (ISBN: 0-7126-8399-2).

Here are some interesting glimpses from the future of money to give you a feel for the material you'll read... your money's value is determined by a global casino of unprecedented proportions...$2 trillion are traded per day in foreign exchange markets, 100 times more than the trading volume of all the stockmarkets of the world combined. Only 2% of these foreign exchange transactions relate to the "real" economy reflecting movements of real goods and services in the world, and 98% are purely speculative. This global casino is triggering the foreign exchange crises which shook Mexico in 1994-5, Asia in 1997 and Russia in 1998. These emergencies are the dislocation symptoms of the old Industrial Age money system. Unless some precautions are taken soon, there is at least a 50-50 chance that the next five to ten years will see a global money meltdown, the only plausible way for a global depression.

The Information Age has already spawned new kinds of currencies...the ilk of PayPal, frequent flyer miles evolving towards a "corporate scrip" (a private currency issued by a corporation) for the traveling elite; a giant corporation you never heard of is issuing its own "Netmarket Cash" for Internet commerce; even Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, foresees "new private currency markets in the 21st century."

Exorbitant compensations are paid to the very few at the top: it started with movie stars and sports heroes, and has now spread to top lawyers, traders, doctors, and business leaders. In the 1960s CEO salaries were only thirty times greater than those of the average worker, compared with two hundred times today (of course Enron and Worldcom debacles may change this somewhat, but salaries won't drop overnight). About 1900 local communities in the world, including over a hundred in the US, are now issuing their own currency, independently from the national money system. Some communities, like in Ithaca, New York, issue paper currency; others in Canada, Australia, the UK or France issue complementary electronic money.

The value of barter transactions exchanges which do not use any money as medium of exchange - totaled almost $6.5 billion in 1994 in the US and Canada, and is increasing three times faster than normal exchanges. The magazine "Barter News" covers the industry's development and now has 30,000 subscribers. It estimates the total barter worldwide at $650 billion in 1997, and growing at an annual rate of 15%.

All of the above are a part of a global and irreversible process of change in our money systems and our societies. We are now in a transition period and Lietaer lucidly documents and analyzes the crevices in our official monetary systems (e.g., the 1994 Mexico crash, the Asian downturn of 1997, Brazil's woes in 1999 etc), societal problems related with ageing of our populations or with the ramifications of an information economy, and even broader environmental issues such as UN's declaration in 1998 of the world's worst year EVER for natural disasters -- and how we can resolve the ideological conflict between short-term financial gains and long term sustainibility.

If a work of non-fiction ever came close to being a financial thriller, Lietaer has written it. Required reading for anyone involved in the business of money.

If you are one of those benighted souls, as I was, who thinks of money as just a convenience which saves us from having to haul bushels of wheat and live pigs along with us when we go shopping, read this book. In less than 80 pages, Richard Douthhwaite delves into the history and functioning of monetary systems, amply demonstrating that money is much more than just a convenient means of exchange. Shockingly, he persuasively shows that what most of us think of as money is in reality little more than smoke and mirrors "coined" by commercial banks in their quest for profits and that a monetary system based on such interest-bearing currency not only promotes but is dependent on continuous economic growth. This is the crux of the issue for Douthwaite, an environmentalist/economist who has debunked the supposedly positive benefits of growth in his earlier work, "The Growth Illusion". Douthwaite proposes a non-growth dependent, four-tiered monetary system, in part based on "energy-backed currency units", which would encourage efficient usage, if not actual replacement, of carbon-based fuels. Many criticisms might be levelled at Douthwaite. I have a few. For instance, it seems ironic, to say the least, to base a monetary system that is meant to foster "sustainability" on a non-renewable, and therefore dwindling, resource. Also, his suggestion that fuel emission rights be apportioned amongst the nations of the world on a per capita basis represents such a massive transfer of wealth to heavily populated, poor countries, who would no doubt immediately sell their freely obtained rights to the energy-addicted rich countries, smacks of blue sky daydreaming (just looks at how far another form of wealth transference - debt relief for countries too poor to repay their debts in any case - has gotten!). As an advocate of zero growth, both demographic and economic, I was disappointed that Douthwaite frames his proposals only within the context of a global free market amongst competing nation-states. It would be interesting to see what sort of monetary system he would propose on the presumption of a planned global economy, based on mutual survival, in which zero growth is considered not only desirable but mandatory. This, too, is blue sky daydreaming, I admit, but what truly effective remedies in this increasingly precarious world of ours aren't? But whatever its shortcomings, "The Ecology of Money" presents an illuminating look into our current monetary system and some provocative ideas for reforming it. It's a must read for anyone concerned about where the world, and its confused, nearsighted human species, are headed.

Being an outsider of European Intergration as asian, I can catch layout picture from this book about the EURO system. Even it will bring new future in major regions on focus economy and business. This book is not under academical theories only but also on practical issues. And the writing is not hard to read for non-inglish speaker.

It's a book about EURO which you'll find interesting. It is actually a collection of articles written by various industry specialists. It examines the impact of EURO on many areas like Bond Market, Equity Market & foreign exchange rate etc, it also illustrates the role of ECB.

It's recommended to students who want to have a quick grasp of knowledge in the EMU. It contains many graphs and diagrams which can raise your speed of reading. However, the impact of Euro on Equity market is a little bit too short.

Highly recommended to overseas students in Europe.

Nice equations, but hasn't kept up with Ph.D.'s who work on Wall Street and know the theory, thoroughly understand the products, and can apply practical but theoretically sound compromises to accommodate reality. Ph.D.'s at work in finance - including myself (physics) - are probably too busy to write the definitive modelling book. This book fails to address key ingredients such as daycounts, settlement conventions, documentation asymmetry, and more.

This is a fine overview of credit derivatives modeling. The model explanations are good, but the book may have benefited from more disclosure about data limitations and the current sources of data. Value dislocations due to documentation language are not captured by the models, especially in the light of ISDA's 2003 language changes. More detail on applications and the need to deal with risks introduced by specific structures would also have been helpful.

Curiously, there are a few conventions inconsistent with market practice used in this book. For instance, the author defines credit risk as default risk, ignoring the standard definition of credit risk which includes general credit spread widening, and credit downgrades. It also seems the author is unfamiliar with how first-to-default baskets are traded, and seems to think that premiums of the survivors are paid after a first-to-default event (They cease.). These observations aside, this is a long-awaited reference for credit derivatives professionals.

For the above risks, I recommend two other sources. Applications and documentation risks are clearly explained in Tavakoli's "Credit Derivatives" (2nd Edition). For professionals who want to know how to apply derivatives in structured finance, I highly recommend Tavakoli's just released book: "Collateralized Debt Obligations and Structured Finance".

The book covers the basics of credit risk modeling and derivative pricing (both structural and intensity type of models), explained in a clear style with enough detail to enable implementation (a rarity in financial literature!). Basics of the theory of stochastic processes and risk-neutral pricing are also covered. Calibration methods for the models are clearly explained. Due to the limited scope, some topics are given only cursory coverage (Copula function methods, role of interest-rates models etc.), but even then, enough references are provided. A very useful, concisely written tome!