John Y. Campbell – författare

Two leading economists reveal why today’s personal finance markets are rigged against us and offer practical steps to fix themWe interact with the financial system every day, whether taking out or paying off loans, making insurance claims, or simply depositing money into our bank accounts. Fixed exposes how this system has been corrupted to serve the interests of financial services providers and their cleverest customers—at the expense of ordinary people.John Campbell and Tarun Ramadorai diagnose the ills of today’s personal finance markets in the United States and across the globe, looking at everything from short-term saving and borrowing to loans for education and housing, financial products for retirement, and insurance. They show how the system is “fixed” to benefit those who are wealthy and more educated while encouraging financial mistakes by those who are aren’t, making it difficult for regular consumers to make sound financial decisions and disadvantaging them in some of the most consequential economic transactions of their lives. Campbell and Ramadorai describe how some even opt out of the financial system altogether, relying on unregulated and often shady mechanisms to implement necessary financial functions, with dire consequences for individuals, families, and the economy more broadly.With the explosive growth of the global middle class, longer lifespans, and greater numbers of seniors managing their money alone, the pitfalls of personal finance now affect billions of people around the world. Fixed proposes concrete solutions that harnesses the expertise of economists, the power of government, and the speed of technology to restore fairness and trust in our broken system and make it work better for ordinary people.

A landmark book on quantitative methods in financial markets for graduate students and finance professionalsRecent decades have seen an extraordinary growth in the use of quantitative methods in financial markets. Finance professionals routinely use sophisticated statistical techniques in portfolio management, proprietary trading, risk management, financial consulting, and securities regulation. This graduate-level textbook is designed for PhD students, advanced MBA students, and industry professionals interested in the econometrics of financial modeling. The book covers the entire spectrum of empirical finance, including the predictability of asset returns, tests of the Random Walk Hypothesis, the microstructure of securities markets, event analysis, the Capital Asset Pricing Model and the Arbitrage Pricing Theory, the term structure of interest rates, dynamic models of economic equilibrium, and nonlinear financial models such as ARCH, neural networks, statistical fractals, and chaos theory.Each chapter develops statistical techniques within the context of a particular financial application. This exciting text contains a unique and accessible combination of theory and practice, bringing state-of-the-art statistical techniques to the forefront of financial applications. Each chapter also includes a discussion of recent empirical evidence, for example, the rejection of the Random Walk Hypothesis, as well as problems designed to help readers incorporate what they have learned into their own applications.

A nonpartisan plan of action for fixing the global economy from fifteen of the world''s leading economistsIn the fall of 2008, fifteen of the world''s leading economists—representing the broadest spectrum of economic opinion—gathered at New Hampshire''s Squam Lake. Their goal: the mapping of a long-term plan for financial regulation reform.The Squam Lake Report distills the wealth of insights from the ongoing collaboration that began at these meetings and provides a revelatory, unified, and coherent voice for fixing our troubled and damaged financial markets. As an alternative to the patchwork solutions and ideologically charged proposals that have dominated other discussions, the Squam Lake group sets forth a clear nonpartisan plan of action to transform the regulation of financial markets—not just for the current climate—but for generations to come.Arguing that there has been a conflict between financial institutions and society, these diverse experts present sound and transparent prescriptions to reduce this divide. They look at the critical holes in the existing regulatory framework for handling complex financial institutions, retirement savings, and credit default swaps. They offer ideas for new financial instruments designed to recapitalize banks without burdening taxpayers. To lower the risk that large banks will fail, the authors call for higher capital requirements as well as a systemic regulator who is part of the central bank. They collectively analyze where the financial system has failed, and how these weak points should be overhauled.Combining an immense depth of academic, private sector, and public policy experience, The Squam Lake Report contains urgent recommendations that will positively influence everyone''s financial well-being—all who care about the world''s economic health need to pay attention.