The Essentials of Social Finance provides an interesting, accessible overview of this fascinating ecosystem, blending insights from finance and social entrepreneurship. It highlights the key challenges facing social finance, while also showcasing its vast opportunities. Topics covered include microfinance, venture philanthropy, social impact bonds, crowdfunding, and impact measurement. Case studies are peppered throughout, and a balance of US, European, Asian, and Islamic perspectives are included. Each chapter contains learning objectives, discussion questions, and a list of key terms. There is also an appendix explaining key financial concepts for readers without a background in the subject, as well as downloadable PowerPoint slides to accompany each chapter. This will be a valuable text for students of finance, investment, social entrepreneurship, social innovation, and related areas. It will also be useful to researchers, professionals, and policy-makers interested in social finance.

The current dynamics of world economy show remarkable changes in the socio-economics of credit provision and entrepreneurship. If the emergence of the sharing economy is fostering innovative models of collaborative agency, networking and venture business, economic actors are also looking for a more sustainable development, able to foster profitability as well as community welfare. This book investigates Islamic social finance as a paramount example of this economy under change, where the balance between economic efficiency and social impact is contributing to the transformation of the market from an exchange- to a community-oriented institution. The collected essays analyse the social dimension of entrepreneurship from an Islamic perspective, highlighting the extent to which the rationales of "sharing," distribution and cooperation, affect the conceptualization of the market in Islam as a place of "shared prosperity." Moving from the conceptual "roots" of this paradigm to its operative "branches," the contributing authors also connect the most recent trends in the financial market to Shari‘ah-based strategies for community welfare, hence exploring the applications of Islamic social finance from the sharing economy, FinTech and crowdfunding to microcredit, waqf, zakat, sukuk and green investments. An illuminating reference for researchers, practitioners and policy-makers dealing with the challenges of a global market where not only is diversity being perceived as a value to be fostered, but also as an important opportunity for a more inclusive economy for everybody.

This book introduces machine learning in finance and illustrates how we can use computational tools in numerical finance in real-world context. These computational techniques are particularly useful in financial risk management, corporate bankruptcy prediction, stock price prediction, and portfolio management. The book also offers practical and managerial implications of financial and managerial decision support systems and how these systems capture vast amount of financial data. Business risk and uncertainty are two of the toughest challenges in the financial industry. This book will be a useful guide to the use of machine learning in forecasting, modeling, trading, risk management, economics, credit risk, and portfolio management.

There is increasing pressure for all of us to take responsibility for our own financial security and wellbeing, but we often overlook how the benefits that come with a job can help us do that. Essential Personal Finance: A Practical Guide for Employees focuses on these valuable work benefits and shows how you can build on this important foundation to achieve financial security and your life goals. This unique book explores how making effective and practical use of these work benefits (such as pension scheme, life cover, sick pay, cheap loans, savings schemes and even financial coaching), means facing up to the behavioural biases we are all plagued with. Given that these can get in the way of even the best intentions, Essential Personal Finance tackles these biases head-on with practical ideas and tips for overcoming or harnessing them for good, and will help you to develop a positive and fruitful relationship with your money. With financial stress being a major cause of absenteeism and sick leave, low morale and lost productivity, the advice in this book also offers employers enormous benefits. By empowering employees through financial education and financial awareness, progressive employers will help them feel more in control of their lives, and experience less stress, resulting in higher morale and productivity. Offering a distinctive approach which combines academic insight with practical financial wisdom and tools, this is a must-have book for all employees. It will help you make the most of everything your job has to offer so you can worry less about money and live life to the full.

Essentials of Health Care Finance stands firmly in its place as the leading textbook on healthcare finance. No other text so completely blends the best of current finance theory with the tools needed in day-to-day practice. Useful for all course levels as well as a professional reference, this text offers a comprehensive introduction to the field. The Seventh Edition has been thoroughly revised to reflect the current economic environment in the healthcare industry, with thoughtful descriptions and ‘real-world’ examples. As the not-for-profit health care sector has increasingly come under attack by legislators seeking new sources of tax revenue, this edition also features a new chapter on assessing community benefits including an examination of the new Schedule H of the IRS 990 form. Ancillary instructor materials for the Seventh Edition have been significantly expanded and updated. PowerPoint lecture slides now include selected examples from the chapters. Electronic versions of many of the charts and tables in the chapters are provided to enable the instructor to re-create and modify existing examples. An expanded set of test questions with detailed answers will be provided for each chapter. New excel spreadsheets for selected chapters will be created to help both the students and the instructors perform a variety of financial analysis tasks with spreadsheet templates. The instructor’s manual has been revised to include key learning points, chapter overviews, and guidelines for class discussion.

Essentials of Financial Management is a paperback edition of an Open Access e-textbook suitable for students with limited knowledge of finance and financial markets. It answers the main questions of a corporate entity, such as how businesses finance their activities, how they select projects to invest in, the distribution of net cash flow and, of increasing importance, how businesses manage price risk relating to cost of goods sold or a decline in revenue. In providing invaluable guidance to finance, management and business students, Essentials of Financial Management employs two main philosophies: that finance is a real-life subject and that finance is a numerical subject, which is why this brilliant e-textbook contains real world examples as well as numerous Excel spreadsheet solutions for students to download and use.

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.