Why fears about a looming student loan crisis are unfounded—and how they obscure what's really wrong with student lendingCollege tuition and student debt levels have been rising at an alarming pace for at least two decades. These trends, coupled with an economy weakened by a major recession, have raised serious questions about whether we are headed for a major crisis, with borrowers defaulting on their loans in unprecedented numbers and taxpayers being forced to fo...

Straight Talk and solid retirement advice for all CanadiansIn the face of government changes, financial market volatility, and an aging workforce, Canadians are understandably concerned about the impact on their finances and their future retirement. This reassuring book debunks the generally-accepted claims about necessary savings rates, which can cause paranoia among those beginning to contemplate retirement. The authors offer greater insight into planning approac...

SELECTED AS A 2008 BEST BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE ECONOMIST"ONE OF THE SMARTEST INVESTORS ON THE PLANET."--MONEY MAGAZINE“This book is an essential read for those whowish to understand the modern world of investing.”—Alan GreenspanWinner of the 2008 Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year AwardWhen Markets Collide is a timely alert...

The financial crisis that began in 2007 in the United States swept the world, producing substantial bank failures and forcing unprecedented state aid for the crippled global financial system. Bringing together three leading financial economists to provide an international perspective, Balancing the Banks draws critical lessons from the causes of the crisis and proposes important regulatory reforms, including sound guidelines for the ways in which distressed banks might be dealt wi...

A compelling argument for why stewardship of wealth and service to others should be our highest financial priorityStewardship is the journey of financial insider John Taft towards understanding and affirming the importance of stewardship—which he has come to define as "serving others"—as a core principle for the financial services industry, the global financial system, and society at large.By defining the attributes of authentic stewardship, this b...

Expert contributors examine the recent actions of the Federal Reserve and suggest directions for the Fed going forward by drawing on past political, historical, and market principles. They explain how the Fed arrived at its current position, offer ideas on how to exit the situation, and propose new market-based reforms that can help keep the Fed on the road to good monetary policy in the future.

Most commonly used in economic and public policy decisions, benefit-cost analysis traditionally attempts to calculate a bottom line by assigning monetary values to all factors associated with a proposed project or action. By contrast, multiple account benefit-cost analysis recognizes that all values are complex and that not all consequences can be expressed in monetary terms or incorporated into one summary measure of net benefit.In this textbook, designed for practitioners as well...

This book examines the behavior of individuals at risk and insurance industry decision makers involved in selling, buying and regulation. It compares their actions to those predicted by benchmark models of choice derived from classical economic theory. Where actual choices stray from predictions, the behavior is considered to be anomalous. Howard C. Kunreuther, Mark Pauly and Stacey McMorrow attempt to understand why these anomalies occur, in many cases using insights from behavioral econo...

Praise for Free Cash Flow and Shareholder Yield"Free Cash Flow and Shareholder Yield provides a provocative solution to the profound paradigm shift now redefining valuation standards for markets around the globe. In commonsense terms, it defines how the investment community has begun the journey of shifting to the more dependable, robust metric of free cash flow."—Rob Brown, Chief Investment Officer, Genworth Financial Asset Management, Inc...

Each year we pay billions in fees to those who run our financial system. The money comes from our bank accounts, our pensions, our borrowing, and often we aren’t told that the money has been taken. These billions may be justified if the finance industry does a good job, but as this book shows, it too often fails us. Financial institutions regularly place their business interests first, charging for advice that does nothing to improve performance, employing short-term buying strategies that...

The deflation of the subprime mortgage bubble in 2006-7 is widely agreed to have been the immediate cause of the collapse of the financial sector in 2008. Consequently, one might think that uncovering the origins of subprime lending would make the root causes of the crisis obvious. That is essentially where public debate about the causes of the crisis began—and ended—in the month following the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and the 502-point fall in the Dow Jones Industrial Average in mid-S...

There is still no consensus on who or what caused the financial crisis which engulfed the world, beginning in the summer of 2007.A huge number of suspects have been identified, from greedy investment bankers, through feckless borrowers, dilatory regulators and myopic central bankers to violent video games and high levels of testosterone among the denizens of trading floors. There is not even agreement on whether the crisis shows a need for more government intervention in markets, o...