Cocktail Party Economics

Cocktail Party Economics
Author: Eveline J. Adomait
Publisher:
Total Pages: 178
Release: 2011-03-15
Genre: Economics
ISBN: 9780132666008

A little Economics training can go a long way in helping you understand the real world you live in. Assistant Professor of Economics Evie Adomait, along with her writing partner Richard Maranta, write simply about what can appear to be a complicated subject while never dumbing down the intellectual ideas which make Economic thought so important in this day and age. From the classroom to a cocktail party, this book will help you hold your own in conversations about Economics.

Cocktail Economics

Cocktail Economics
Author: Victor A. Canto
Publisher: Financial Times/Prentice Hall
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2007
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

“Successful investors are those who can pick the right investments for different economic conditions. It's like matching wine with food. In this book, Victor Canto is both your star chef and sommelier. Don't be afraid to put Cocktail Economics to work today. You'll find that two-star investing has become a four-star endeavor.” –Charlie Parker, financial maven and former Chief Financial Officer of Continental Insurance “Victor Canto's insight and uber-rational approach will forever change the way you look at risk and return. Perhaps equally important, he'll make you a better economic and political thinker. No one has a greater understanding of how marginal changes in world economics and politics impact portfolio holdings.” –Neil Rose, CFA, CIO Cadinha & Co. “I count Victor Canto among today's best and smartest investment advisors. He has made money in both the good times and bad for many a satisfied client. With this book, he has now done all investors, including myself, an important service: He has written a widely accessible book about the marriage of economics and investing, and the crucial ties that bind the two. It's the story of how big ideas make the investment world go round.” –From the Foreword by Dr. John Rutledge, Chairman, Rutledge Capital, LLC What can moonshine, mountain climbers, power plants, salmon, football players, and well-known celebrities teach you about investing? More than you ever imagined! Through entertaining, easy-to-understand anecdotes, analogies, and examples, Canto reveals why the most successful investment strategies reflect a balance of active and passive approaches. You'll learn how to “read” economic cycles, identifying the specific asset classes most likely to outperform in tomorrow's business environment. Construct and optimize your winning investment plan, step-by-step, from start to finish! MAKE HAY WHILE THE SUN SHINES The case for predicting, forecasting, and timing PASSIVE INVESTING? ACTIVE INVESTING? NO. BOTH. Why you need to take both sides in the never-ending debate ELASTICITY: CATCH IT IF YOU CAN Putting industry behavior to work for you CALIFORNIA , FRANCE, AND THE “LOCATION EFFECT” Investing internationally in the age of globalization TURN “SMOKE” INTO “SIGNALS” Making the most of publicly available price data YOUR PORTFOLIO VS. THE GOVERNMENT Anticipating and responding to regulations and taxation TILT TOWARD SUCCESS, ONE STEP AT A TIME Build your benchmark portfolio, then optimize it for changing environments Victor Canto reveals exactly how the economy affects markets and how to “read” business cycles so you can profit from every shift in the business cycle. Among the topics covered: investing internationally in the age of globalization; transforming price data into usable market “signals”; anticipating the impact of regulations and taxation; and more. From start to finish, Canto's focus is practical, and his focus is simple: outstanding investment results. Foreword xii Preface xvii Introduction: The Above-Average Opportunity xxi Chapter 1: The Buy-and-Hold Connection: Investing Fundamentals, Courtesy of the American Homeowner, the American Dream–or Reality? 1 Chapter 2: Leaping the Transaction-Cost Hurdle: Sometimes It's Easy, Other Times It's Not 19 Chapter 3: Dressing Appropriately for the Stock Market: The Potential Payoffs of a Switching Strategy 31 Chapter 4: Catch Elasticity If You Can: An Introduction to Industry Behavior 47 Chapter 5: Putting High-Beta to Work: Industry-Based Portfolio Strategies 67 Chapter 6: California Is a Country: An Introduction to the Location Effect 83 Chapter 7: &And France Is a State: How to Invest Internationally in the Age of Globalization 99 Chapter 8: Pipelines to Our Investment Returns: How We Get What We Want, in the Amount We Want, and When We Want It 113 Chapter 9: Who Are You? Investor Profiles and the Case for Asset Allocation 131 Chapter 10: Your Benchmark Portfolio. . .and Beyond 145 Chapter 11: Turning Smoke into Signals: How to Make the Most Out of Price Data 157 Chapter 12: Making Hay While the Sun Shines: The Case for Predicting, Forecasting, and Timing 173 Chapter 13: The Fight Is On: How to Invest Properly Relative to Regulations, Inflation, and Taxation 195 Chapter 14: Ending the Never-Ending Debate: Active vs. Passive Investing and Why You Can Take Both Sides 217 Chapter 15: A Rational Walk Down Wall Street: Darting Between Passive and Active When the Odds Are in Your Favor 233 Chapter 16: Alpha Bets: The Case for Hedge Funds and a Greek Letter You'll Want in Your Portfolio 247 Chapter 17: Tilting Toward Success: A Step-by-Step Guide to Above-Average Asset Allocation 265 Index 291

Makers and Takers

Makers and Takers
Author: Rana Foroohar
Publisher: Currency
Total Pages: 402
Release: 2017-09-12
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0553447254

Is Wall Street bad for Main Street America? "A well-told exploration of why our current economy is leaving too many behind." —The New York Times In looking at the forces that shaped the 2016 presidential election, one thing is clear: much of the population believes that our economic system is rigged to enrich the privileged elites at the expense of hard-working Americans. This is a belief held equally on both sides of political spectrum, and it seems only to be gaining momentum. A key reason, says Financial Times columnist Rana Foroohar, is the fact that Wall Street is no longer supporting Main Street businesses that create the jobs for the middle and working class. She draws on in-depth reporting and interviews at the highest rungs of business and government to show how the “financialization of America”—the phenomenon by which finance and its way of thinking have come to dominate every corner of business—is threatening the American Dream. Now updated with new material explaining how our corrupted financial sys­tem propelled Donald Trump to power, Makers and Takers explores the confluence of forces that has led American businesses to favor balance-sheet engineering over the actual kind, greed over growth, and short-term profits over putting people to work. From the cozy relationship between Wall Street and Washington, to a tax code designed to benefit wealthy individuals and corporations, to forty years of bad policy decisions, she shows why so many Americans have lost trust in the sys­tem, and why it matters urgently to us all. Through colorful stories of both “Takers,” those stifling job creation while lining their own pockets, and “Makers,” businesses serving the real economy, Foroohar shows how we can reverse these trends for a better path forward.

The Law and Economics of Irrational Behavior

The Law and Economics of Irrational Behavior
Author: Francesco Parisi
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 634
Release: 2005
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780804751445

This collection of essays explores the most relevant developments at the interface of economics and psychology, giving special attention to models of irrational behavior, and draws the relevant implications of such models for the design of legal rules and institutions. The application of economic models of irrational behavior to law is especially challenging because specific departures from rational behavior differ markedly from one another. Furthermore, the analytical and deductive instruments of economic theory have to be reshaped to deal with the fragmented and heterogeneous findings of psychological research, turning towards a more experimental and inductive methodology. This volume brings together pioneering scholars in this area, along with some of the most exciting developments in the field of legal and economic theory. Areas of application include criminal law and sentencing, tort law, contract law, corporate law, and financial markets.

Secrets of the Moneylab

Secrets of the Moneylab
Author: Kay-Yut Chen
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2010-09-02
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 110144424X

Taking the findings of behavioral economics from the cocktail party to the boardroom. Experimental economist Kay-Yut Chen leads an economics lab at Hewlett- Packard-the first of its kind at any company. His groundbreaking research into human behavior has turned into tangible results for HP. He has saved the company millions of dollars, simply by explaining why people really do the things they do. MoneyLab offers practical lessons being put to use right now at HP and other leading companies. It explains, for instance, how to: ? Use incentives to influence employees, suppliers, and buyers ? Determine whom to trust, and how much ? Reduce the negative effects of irrational behavior by noticing patterns that don't seem logical ? Take advantage of the human tendency to game the system In the spirit of Predictably Irrational, but with a more practical approach, Chen shows how to translate the findings of behavioral economics into concrete actions to achieve new levels of success.

The Economists' Hour

The Economists' Hour
Author: Binyamin Appelbaum
Publisher: Little, Brown
Total Pages: 456
Release: 2019-09-03
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0316512273

In this "lively and entertaining" history of ideas (Liaquat Ahamed, The New Yorker), New York Times editorial writer Binyamin Appelbaum tells the story of the people who sparked four decades of economic revolution. Before the 1960s, American politicians had never paid much attention to economists. But as the post-World War II boom began to sputter, economists gained influence and power. In The Economists' Hour, Binyamin Appelbaum traces the rise of the economists, first in the United States and then around the globe, as their ideas reshaped the modern world, curbing government, unleashing corporations and hastening globalization. Some leading figures are relatively well-known, such as Milton Friedman, the elfin libertarian who had a greater influence on American life than any other economist of his generation, and Arthur Laffer, who sketched a curve on a cocktail napkin that helped to make tax cuts a staple of conservative economic policy. Others stayed out of the limelight, but left a lasting impact on modern life: Walter Oi, a blind economist who dictated to his wife and assistants some of the calculations that persuaded President Nixon to end military conscription; Alfred Kahn, who deregulated air travel and rejoiced in the crowded cabins on commercial flights as the proof of his success; and Thomas Schelling, who put a dollar value on human life. Their fundamental belief? That government should stop trying to manage the economy.Their guiding principle? That markets would deliver steady growth, and ensure that all Americans shared in the benefits. But the Economists' Hour failed to deliver on its promise of broad prosperity. And the single-minded embrace of markets has come at the expense of economic equality, the health of liberal democracy, and future generations. Timely, engaging and expertly researched, The Economists' Hour is a reckoning -- and a call for people to rewrite the rules of the market. A Wall Street Journal Business BestsellerWinner of the Porchlight Business Book Award in Narrative & Biography

Filthy Lucre

Filthy Lucre
Author: Joseph Heath
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada
Total Pages: 390
Release: 2010-06-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1554687691

Economists have a bad reputation. Not only do they assume that everyone is self-interested and amoral, they are almost always cheerleaders for the free market. As a result, most people who do not already share their beliefs ignore everything that economists have to say. This is a problem. Even among the highly educated, economics is a minefield of fallacies and errors. Among those who know little about the subject—a group that includes the average taxpayer and consumer, as well as most journalists, political activists and politicians—almost every widely held belief is false. The level of economic illiteracy is stunning. Filthy Lucre aims to level the playing field and, in this time of enormous market volatility and unprecedented instability, raise our level of economic literacy. Drawing on everyday examples to skewer the six favourite economic fallacies of the right and then the left, we learn why the right wing so wrongly believes that capitalism is the natural order of things, that any tax cut is a good tax cut, and that personal responsibility can solve any problem. And, contrary to how the left feels, why we must resist the urge to fiddle with prices, why the pursuit of profit is not such a bad thing, and why, despite efforts to improve or even fix wages, some jobs will always suck.

Eat the Rich

Eat the Rich
Author: P. J. O'Rourke
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
Total Pages: 348
Release: 2007-12-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1555847102

A New York Times bestseller: “The funniest writer in America” takes on the global economy (The Wall Street Journal). In this book, renowned political humorist P. J. O’Rourke, author of Parliament of Whores and How the Hell Did This Happen? leads us on a hysterical whirlwind world tour from the “good capitalism” of Wall Street to the “bad socialism” of Cuba in search of the answer to an age-old question: “Why do some places prosper and thrive, while others just suck?” With stops in Albania, Sweden, Hong Kong, Moscow, and Tanzania, O’Rourke takes a look at the complexities of economics with a big dose of the incomparable wit that has made him one of today’s most refreshing commentators. “O’Rourke has done the unthinkable: he’s made money funny.” —Forbes FYI “[O’Rourke is] witty, smart and—though he hides it under a tough coat of cynicism—a fine reporter . . . Delightful.” —The New York Times Book Review

Economic Fables

Economic Fables
Author: Ariel Rubinstein
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2012
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1906924775

"I had the good fortune to grow up in a wonderful area of Jerusalem, surrounded by a diverse range of people: Rabbi Meizel, the communist Sala Marcel, my widowed Aunt Hannah, and the intellectual Yaacovson. As far as I'm concerned, the opinion of such people is just as authoritative for making social and economic decisions as the opinion of an expert using a model." Part memoir, part crash-course in economic theory, this deeply engaging book by one of the world's foremost economists looks at economic ideas through a personal lens. Together with an introduction to some of the central concepts in modern economic thought, Ariel Rubinstein offers some powerful and entertaining reflections on his childhood, family and career. In doing so, he challenges many of the central tenets of game theory, and sheds light on the role economics can play in society at large. Economic Fables is as thought-provoking for seasoned economists as it is enlightening for newcomers to the field.

Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy

Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy
Author: Joseph E. Stiglitz
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2010-10-04
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0393077071

An incisive look at the global economic crisis, our flawed response, and the implications for the world’s future prosperity. The Great Recession, as it has come to be called, has impacted more people worldwide than any crisis since the Great Depression. Flawed government policy and unscrupulous personal and corporate behavior in the United States created the current financial meltdown, which was exported across the globe with devastating consequences. The crisis has sparked an essential debate about America’s economic missteps, the soundness of this country’s economy, and even the appropriate shape of a capitalist system. Few are more qualified to comment during this turbulent time than Joseph E. Stiglitz. Winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics, Stiglitz is “an insanely great economist, in ways you can’t really appreciate unless you’re deep into the field” (Paul Krugman, New York Times). In Freefall, Stiglitz traces the origins of the Great Recession, eschewing easy answers and demolishing the contention that America needs more billion-dollar bailouts and free passes to those “too big to fail,” while also outlining the alternatives and revealing that even now there are choices ahead that can make a difference. The system is broken, and we can only fix it by examining the underlying theories that have led us into this new “bubble capitalism.” Ranging across a host of topics that bear on the crisis, Stiglitz argues convincingly for a restoration of the balance between government and markets. America as a nation faces huge challenges—in health care, energy, the environment, education, and manufacturing—and Stiglitz penetratingly addresses each in light of the newly emerging global economic order. An ongoing war of ideas over the most effective type of capitalist system, as well as a rebalancing of global economic power, is shaping that order. The battle may finally give the lie to theories of a “rational” market or to the view that America’s global economic dominance is inevitable and unassailable. For anyone watching with indignation while a reckless Wall Street destroyed homes, educations, and jobs; while the government took half-steps hoping for a “just-enough” recovery; and while bankers fell all over themselves claiming not to have seen what was coming, then sought government bailouts while resisting regulation that would make future crises less likely, Freefall offers a clear accounting of why so many Americans feel disillusioned today and how we can realize a prosperous economy and a moral society for the future.