Nobel Prize-winning economist explains why we need to reclaim finance for the common good The reputation of the financial industry could hardly be worse than it is today in the painful aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. New York Times best-selling economist Robert Shiller is no apologist for the sins of finance—he is probably the only person to have predicted both the stock market bubble of 2000 and the real estate bubble that led up to the subprime mortgage meltdown. But in this important and timely book, Shiller argues that, rather than condemning finance, we need to reclaim it for the common good. He makes a powerful case for recognizing that finance, far from being a parasite on society, is one of the most powerful tools we have for solving our common problems and increasing the general well-being. We need more financial innovation—not less—and finance should play a larger role in helping society achieve its goals. Challenging the public and its leaders to rethink finance and its role in society, Shiller argues that finance should be defined not merely as the manipulation of money or the management of risk but as the stewardship of society's assets. He explains how people in financial careers—from CEO, investment manager, and banker to insurer, lawyer, and regulator—can and do manage, protect, and increase these assets. He describes how finance has historically contributed to the good of society through inventions such as insurance, mortgages, savings accounts, and pensions, and argues that we need to envision new ways to rechannel financial creativity to benefit society as a whole. Ultimately, Shiller shows how society can once again harness the power of finance for the greater good.

The Finance Book will help you think and manage like a financial strategist. Written specifically for non-finance professionals, it will give you all you need to know to manage your business more effectively and think more strategically. It will help you to: Have the confidence to read and interpret financial statements Ask the right questions about financial performance Apply important financial tools and ratios Learn how to think financially and make better strategic financial decisions Covering business finance, accounting fundamentals, budgeting, profitability and cash management, you'll find the tools you need in order to make the best financial decisions for your business. 'Essential reading for any non-finance ‭professional. This is an easy to read and ‭practical guide to the world of finance.’ ‭Paul Herman, Group CEO, Bluebox ‭Corporate Finance ‭‘A really helpful, well organised and easy to ‭understand primer and reference book for ‭those who aren’t accountants but still need ‭to understand the accounts.’ ‭Roger Siddle, Chairman, Cordium Group ‘A great book. At last, a guide that ‭demystifies and encourages business ‭owners to practically understand financial ‭matters. A must read.’ ‭Gordon Vater CEO, RiiG Limited

Manage, budget, save, and invest your money wisely.

The venture capital model doesn’t work—at least not for 99% of startups and small businesses. In this 99% are a lot of companies with incredible potential: businesses headed by female founders and those from diverse racial backgrounds, organizations headquartered outside of venture capital hubs, and purpose-driven enterprises that are creating social and environmental impact alongside financial success. Counter to what the press-savvy venture capital world would have you believe, there are a lot of funding options out there for startups and small businesses. Adventure Finance is designed to help you understand some of these options, and walk you through real examples of how other founders and funders have put them to use. In simple, approachable language, the book breaks down the different types of funding options available from revenue-based financing to recoverable grants to redeemable equity to distributed ownership and more. Through a mix of storytelling and frameworks, based on a decade of research and experience in investing in early-stage companies, this book will give you the ability to determine how each of these structures can contribute to your own funding journey. The goal for this book is to shift the conversation about startup funding and help founders and funders widen the spectrum of “mainstream” investment options in order to make the venture financing world more inclusive and purpose-driven.

Dark Finance offers one of the first ethnographic accounts of financial expansion and its political impacts in Eastern Europe. Following workers, managers, and investors in the Macedonian construction sector, Fabio Mattioli shows how financialization can empower authoritarian regimes—not by making money accessible to everyone, but by allowing a small group of oligarchs to monopolize access to international credit and promote a cascade of exploitative domestic debt relations. The landscape of failed deals and unrealizable dreams that is captured in this book portrays finance not as a singular, technical process. Instead, Mattioli argues that finance is a set of political and economic relations that entangles citizens, Eurocrats, and workers in tense paradoxes. Mattioli traces the origins of illiquidity in the reorganization of the European project and the postsocialist perversion of socialist financial practices—a dangerous mix that hid the Macedonian regime's weakness behind a façade of urban renewal and, for a decade, made it seem omnipresent and invincible. Dark Finance chronicles how, one bad deal at a time, Macedonia's authoritarian regime rode a wave of financial expansion that deepened its reach into Macedonian society, only to discover that its domination, like all speculative bubbles, was teetering on the verge of collapse.

This book introduces machine learning methods in finance. It presents a unified treatment of machine learning and various statistical and computational disciplines in quantitative finance, such as financial econometrics and discrete time stochastic control, with an emphasis on how theory and hypothesis tests inform the choice of algorithm for financial data modeling and decision making. With the trend towards increasing computational resources and larger datasets, machine learning has grown into an important skillset for the finance industry. This book is written for advanced graduate students and academics in financial econometrics, mathematical finance and applied statistics, in addition to quants and data scientists in the field of quantitative finance. Machine Learning in Finance: From Theory to Practice is divided into three parts, each part covering theory and applications. The first presents supervised learning for cross-sectional data from both a Bayesian and frequentist perspective. The more advanced material places a firm emphasis on neural networks, including deep learning, as well as Gaussian processes, with examples in investment management and derivative modeling. The second part presents supervised learning for time series data, arguably the most common data type used in finance with examples in trading, stochastic volatility and fixed income modeling. Finally, the third part presents reinforcement learning and its applications in trading, investment and wealth management. Python code examples are provided to support the readers' understanding of the methodologies and applications. The book also includes more than 80 mathematical and programming exercises, with worked solutions available to instructors. As a bridge to research in this emergent field, the final chapter presents the frontiers of machine learning in finance from a researcher's perspective, highlighting how many well-known concepts in statistical physics are likely to emerge as important methodologies for machine learning in finance.

We are only in the early stages of a broader revolution that will impact every aspect of the global economy, including commerce and government services. Coming financial technology innovations could improve the quality of life for all people. Over the past few decades, digital technology has transformed finance. Financial technology (fintech) has enabled more people with fewer resources, in more places around the world, to take advantage of banking, insurance, credit, investment, and other financial services. Marion Laboure and Nicolas Deffrennes argue that these changes are only the tip of the iceberg. A much broader revolution is under way that, if steered correctly, will lead to huge and beneficial social change. The authors describe the genesis of recent financial innovations and how they have helped consumers in rich and poor countries alike by reducing costs, increasing accessibility, and improving convenience and efficiency. They connect the dots between early innovations in financial services and the wider revolution unfolding today. Changes may disrupt traditional financial services, especially banking, but they may also help us address major social challenges: opening new career paths for millennials, transforming government services, and expanding the gig economy in developed markets. Fintech could lead to economic infrastructure developments in rural areas and could facilitate emerging social security and healthcare systems in developing countries. The authors make this case with a rich combination of economic theory and case studies, including microanalyses of the effects of fintech innovations on individuals, as well as macroeconomic perspectives on fintech's impact on societies. While celebrating fintech's achievements to date, Laboure and Deffrennes also make recommendations for overcoming the obstacles that remain. The stakes--improved quality of life for all people--could not be higher.