Philip J. Romero - Böcker

Most "managerial economics" textbooks are thinly disguised microeconomics texts: highly theoretical, too dependent on abstract and unproven assumptions, and simply indigestible by busy, practical-minded executives/readers. Furthermore, such texts leave it up to the reader to apply their lessons so as to gain value from the knowledge, and to reinforce that knowledge through practice.

The "theory of the firm" does not resonate with most corporate executives. But in fact, economic forces drive the context for all our important business decisions: When and how much to expand or contract; which markets to enter and exit; when to raise or lower prices; and how to invest surplus resources (retained earnings for companies and savings for individuals).

This book is an application of economics (both micro and macroeconomics) to one of the central challenges of our age for any citizen in a developed economy: How to invest their resources in a changed economic landscape. It contends that the quarter century from the early 1980s to the late 2000s was a unique historical period, creating an exceptionally benign commercial and investing environment. It will not return once the Great Recession is firmly behind us.

America’s health system has been a polarizing issue in most presidential campaigns throughout our lifetimes. It is hardly surprising that an industry that consumes nearly one in every five dollars spent in the U.S. economy will be prominent again in 2016 and beyond. This book will guide you through the fusillade of campaign promises and countercharges you will hear about health care and “reform”. They will be more strident now that the fiscal calamity of Boomer retirements has arrived. This book also offers a powerful tool of reform. The Health Insurance Revenue Bond ™ (HIRB) is a new and completely self-liquidating financing approach that fully funds escalating liabilities such as health care—without deficits. If you can’t bend the curve on health costs, bend the curve on the cost of funding™. HIRB can assist governments in developed nations to begin the long and painful process of deleveraging.

Hedge Funds. These lightly regulated funds continually innovate new investing and trading strategies to take advantage of temporary mispricing of assets (when their market price deviates from their intrinsic value). These techniques are shrouded in mystery, which permits hedge fund managers to charge exceptionally high fees. While the details of each fund’s approach are carefully guarded trade secrets, this book draws the curtain back on the core building blocks of many hedge fund strategies. As an instructional text, it will assist two types of students: Economics and finance students interested in understanding what “quants” do; and software specialists interested in applying their skills to programming trading systems. Hedge Fund Secrets provides a needed complement to journalistic accounts of the hedge fund industry, to deepen the understanding of nonspecialist readers such as policy makers, journalists, and individual investors. The book is organized in modules to allow different readers to focus on the elements of this topic that most interest them. Its authors include a fund practitioner and a computer scientist (Balch), in collaboration with a public policy economist and finance academic (Romero).