Review of Texas, Cotton, And The New Deal (Sam Rayburn Series on Rural Life) (Hardcover)

Dr. Volanto has written an interesting book about the New Deal's attempt to deal with ever dropping cotton prices and overproduction which only worsened the Great Depression. He writes about the various years and the attempts by FDR and the AAA department to get farmers to voluntarily reduce their crops and pay them to plow up their lands with the goal of bring production under control. He makes an interesting point in the book when he notes that severe droughts did more to help limit cotton production than did the AAA's programs.
It's a short history of just one state's problems during the Great Depression. He does not compare the AAA (Agricultural Adjustment Act) program in Texas with other cotton producing states (which would have been an asset to the book) but it's a good historical read and very informative.



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Review of Morning in America: How Ronald Reagan Invented the 1980's (Politics and Society in Twentieth Century America) (Hardcover)

Ronald Reagan campaigned and then was elected on a promise to restore American virility. In the closing years of the cold war, we wanted to believe that America was a super power and that we ourselves were super.

Who better suited for that type of positioning than a former Hollywood actor? I think the "1950's Doc Brown" from the 1985 blockbuster 'Back to the Future' spoke for many people when he just expressed shock that an actor ended up as President of the United States. Yet, it made perfect sense in the early years of the cable revolution when the 'best' public official was one who did manipulate the media for their message.

The author examines how this manipulation provided a needed boost to America. We were still recovering from Vietnam and had difficulty realizing that we were perhaps not the center of the world. Reagan's campaign was genius because it essentially said 'don't' and encouraged swing voters to believe that everything would be solved if they elected Reagan.

Reagan made critical inroads with 'blue-collar' democrats. These voters had supported the party on economic issues but had been increasingly at odds with the Democrats on social issues. Specifically because of his own Hollywood background, Reagan knew these voters could be won if he stressed 'morals' and 'tradition' regardless of how he (a twice divorced man who had signed off on the liberalization of abortion laws as California Governor) actually felt about those same issues. Appearance IS everything in politics.

The author also makes clear that the Reagan years are not admirable. Troy explains how the feel good images of success and luxury were sharply contrasting with the reality being experienced by many people. The rapidly rising cost of living, spending cuts, and the AIDS epidemic prevented many other people from enjoying the prosperity.






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Review of Merton Miller on Derivatives (Wiley Investment) (Hardcover)

Merton Miller, who died in 2001, was an outstanding figure in modern economics. He was one of three financial economists to win the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1990, in his case for his work on the capital structure of corporations - a field that, with his associate Franco Modigliani, he revolutionised if not invented. His great insight was that the value of a company, other things being equal, is invariant with regard to the mix of debt and equity that makes up its capital structure - or, to invoke one of Miller's own picturesque analogies, if I take a dollar out of my right pocket and put it into my left pocket, I am no better off.

This book is a collection of speeches given by Miller in the early to mid-1990s, largely covering the subjects of the derivatives revolution, regulation and corporate governance. The subject matter sounds dry; the speeches are anything but. Miller's jokes are exceptionally good - he has great sport in particular by satirising the convoluted German system of corporate cross-shareholdings, and reflecting ruefully on the inevitable question that is always posed to professional economists ('what will happen to interest rates?' - to which the only sensible answer is 'they will fluctuate'). But underlying the wit and engaging manner is a serious and profound point. Modern finance consists principally in the management of risk. Derivatives perform an exceptionally valuable function in a modern, complex economy by enabling economic agents to accomplish this end. Ill-conceived regulation can do harm by making it impossible for corporations to manage their business risk efficiently; this will have significant economic cost, with no compensating social benefit.

Many collections of speeches are testament merely to an author's vanity, and do not last beyond the occasions for which the speeches were written. This one is different: it is the fruit of an extraordinary intellect, a fine prose style, and a formidable technical expertise. It deserves to last, and is much to be recommended.



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Review of Insider Strategies for Outsourcing Information Systems: Building Productive Partnerships, Avoiding Seductive Traps (Hardcover)

As a consultant involved in strategy change and training, I have seen the fruitless internal conflict over who is to blame when new systems are late or clumsy to implement.Any company involved in or considering new systemsdevelopment will find Ripin and Sayles an invaluable resource fornegotiating with potential vendors and facilitating IS developmentprojects.They stress what is so often forgotten: the critical role ofline manager and user participation ... including more realistic trade-offsbetween costs (and failure risks) and ambitious client wish lists.Theirvivid case studies illustrate how client managers obtain new skills byproject participation that enable them to make more effective use of thesecostly new technologies and even to fine tune applications.Outsourcerprofessionals and client staff and line managers will find Ripin and Saylesan engaging, well documented, and widely useful book on developing andimplementing new information systems.A must read!



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Review of A Citizen's Guide to Ecology (Hardcover)

If you want to learn about the science of ecology .... here's the book to read.. It it is scholarly, without being didactic --- entertaining, without being trivial.

The author seems to come right out of the pages and invite the reader into his thoughts.You'll find yourself immersed in the subject, and talking back with questions, which seem to answer themselves as you go on to subsquent pages.

I didn't become an expert in the subject by reading this book, but I certainly did gain a greater respect for it, as well as for the author.Read it!!



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Review of Lulac, Mexican Americans, and National Policy (Fronteras Series, No. 4) (Hardcover)

Although I have not yet had a chance to read Dr. Kaplowitz's book, I am a former student of his and I can attest to his immense knowledge of U.S./Mexican relations.This book covers the recent history of Mexican Americans and how they have been affected by U.S. policies over the years, for better or worse.I give the book four stars because I know it is written by a first-rate scholar and will prove to be a valuable resource to anyone researching U.S./Mexican relations.



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Review of A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Hardcover)

The term neoliberalism is usually heard in the pejorative sense, often coming from Latin American leaders such as Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales.The term refers to an international economic policy that has been predominant in policy-making circles and university economics departments since the 1970's.The four faces on the cover of this book (Reagan, Deng, Pinochet, and Thatcher) are considered by David Harvey the primemovers of this economic philosophy.Reagnomics, Thatcherism, Deng's capitalism with Chinese characteristics, and Pinochet's free market policies marked the beginning of new era of global capitalism.

Neoliberlism as a philosophy holds that free markets, free trade, and the free flow of capital is the most efficient way to produce the greatest social, political, and economic good.It argues for reduced taxation, reduced regulation, and minimal government involvement in the economy.This includes the privitization of health and retirement benefits, the dismantling of trade unions, and the general opening up of the economy to foreign competition.Supporters of neoliberlism present this as an ideal system.Detractors, such as Harvey, see it as a power grab by economic elites and a race to the bottom for the rest.

In this short, but very well researched book, Harvey charts the capital flows of the last thiry years.In the 1970's, there was the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system, with its fixed exchange rates, tariff barriers, and capital controls.It gave way to floating currencies and high trading volumes.Capital started searching the globe for comparative advantage.Proponents claimed that this routed out corruption and inefficiencies, while opponents saw instability and exploitation.Indeed, Harvey produces ample statistics showing how the rich got richer and the poor stagnated.More surprisingly, he points out that the aggregate economic growth during the years of Keynesian management (the decades between World War II and the 1970's) was greater than during the neoliberal era (the 1970's to the present).The neoliberal era benefitted mainly the wealthy.In the US, the richest 1% now control 15% of the wealth as opposed to 8% at the end of World War II.

When Reagan and Thatcher came to power in the late 1970's and early 1980's they used their control of the IMF and World Bank to impose neoliberal policies on the developing world - especially Latin American countries.In the case of Chile, Pinochet - after violently ousting the Allende government - instituted free market policies as prescribed by the Chicago school, and was relatively successful.Other Latin American countries were not so successful, and it created a backlash of populist nationalisms in the form of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Evo Morales in Bolivia.

The section on China is one of the best in the book: "Neoliberalism with Chinese Characteristics".Harvey points out that China is not a pure neoliberal state.There is still heavy state intervention in the economy and management of the currency. And as a further criticiem of neoliberalism,he reminds us that China has produced some of the highest growth rates - 9 to 10 percent annually.On the downside, the gap between the rich and poor is growing, and because their currency is held artificially low they are building dangerous overcapacity.

Neither does the US, for that matter, operate according to neoliberal principles.Even as it is urging other countries to maintain minimal goverment and balanced budgets, it is running huge deficits and issuing ever more t-bills to cover its excess spending.

With China and the US - two linchpins in the world economy - not playing according to the rules of the game a crisis is bound to happen.One country is totally geared toward producing and exporting, while the other is content with importing, consuming, and creating more debt.Harvey believes that the global economic readjustment that is going to take place will be painful and possibly violent.

Harvey's excellent little book illustrates, once again, that the perfect market, presupposed by neoliberalism and classical liberalism, does not exist.Unfortunately, he does not offer any remedies to rectify the current situation, nor does he offer an alternative system.Nevertheless, this book is very insightful.



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Review of Contemporary Iran: Economy, Society, Politics (Hardcover)

Contemporary Iran is a collection of documented and highly detailed research papers by authors of the first quality. Great Reference! If the information you seek is not contained in the volume, the Bibliographies will take the reader there. All black and white keeps the cost down, but the charts are easy to understand. Permits the reader to unravel much of the current mystery of Iran and to develop a third order of knowing the Land of the Persians.



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Review of John Neff on Investing (Hardcover)

Mutual fund managers who can beat the market for a couple of years are a dime a dozen. Mutual fund managers who can beat the market for a couple of decades are practically unheard of. Which is why almost every investor hasheard of John Neff. In his 31 years as a bargain-hunting fund manager, hebeat the market in 22 of them. By the time he retired a few years ago, adollar invested in his Windsor Fund in 1964 would have returned $56, versus$22 for the S&P 500.

In JOHN NEFF ON INVESTING, one of the truemasters of Wall Street tells us exactly how he compiled this amazingrecord. With collaborator Steven Mintz, he explains what kinds of stocks helooked for (in a nutshell, low p/e stocks of companies growing earnings inexcess of 7% annually, often paying a respectable dividend) and a long listof qualifications concerning just what makes one low p/e stock better thananother. (A low p/e company growing too fast is suspect. A dividend yieldisn't always a must. Cyclical stocks should offer lower p/e multiples. Thelist goes on and on.) Just as importantly, Neff shares the wisdom of alifetime in the investment business, outlining the pitfalls that can trapthe unwary investor. (See Chapter 9, CARE AND MAINTENANCE OF A LOW P/EPORTFOLIO.

The meat of Neff's discussion of his investment style isincluded in the middle third of the book. Armed with this advice, aninvestor can easily begin to screen the stock market for companies that fitthe Neff mold. (MSN MoneyCentral Investor, at www.investor.msn.com, offersa powerful and free screening tool. There are many others.)

Elsewhere,Neff devotes the first third of his book to talking about his formativeyears in the investment business prior to taking over the Windsor Fund. Inthe final third of the book, he provides a journal describing hisinvestment activities at the helm of the Windsor Fund. He talks aboutcritical buy-sell decisions, why he made them, and how they worked out ...and also describes the ever-changing market environment in which he wasmaking them. (Reading this book is a great reminder that large-cap growthstocks don't always lead the market, as they have for the past five years.As such, it should help investors be better prepared the next time marketleadership changes.)

If you had the chance to sit down and talk with JohnNeff for a few weeks about his career and his investment style, what youwould get, though likely not so well structured, would be this book. I'dlove to spend those weeks with John Neff. But I wouldn't give up the chanceto have read this book, either. Few investors have achieved more than Neff,and his story deserves a place on any investor's reading list. ###



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Review of Oxford American Dictionary and Thesaurus (Hardcover)

Perhaps I will end up buying the Oxford English Reference Dictionary at some point, but presently, this Oxford American Dictionary and Thesaurus 1st Ed is great.I don't care about slang or computer definitions in my dictionary, English has always been English, and while American may be different in spelling, it is still English.Internet, blog, PCMCIA, ARP, .NET, Mono, etc... is in computer books, which is where it should be.I don't expect my dictionary to have the recipe for Rice Balls or the proper pronunciation of this common variation of a Japanese dish, now perhaps coming towards being cross-cultural.I expect that information to be in a cookbook.

However, in words, it's wonderful.Why?That's easy; I believe it's because it had 'anfractuosity' as well as the minimum of 3 decent definitions for 'numinous'.This was the smallest dictionary I could find that had all the words in the Prologue of 'The Problem of Pain' by CS Lewis.Any dictionary that can match words with the vocabulary that CS Lewis expressed is all that I need.

Some other thoughts... I've been reading dictionary reviews for 20 minutes, and I think there are too many people that are trying to get subject specific with their dictionaries.Dictionaries should be ENGLISH specific.It's all this slang, idioms, and subject specific vocabulary that has dropped my vocabulary to sad terms.Between that application, and the genuine desire of individuals around the world to give the wrong definition to words such as feminine, it's no wonder the young are becoming less educated while spending more time in school.

New English... There is no such thing.English is English.It's been essentially the same for much longer than I've been alive.

Still, you should definitely get a dictionary of slang and idioms.It's good to know what people are saying in a specific region/country.





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Review of Mighty Fine Words and Smashing Expressions: Making Sense of Transatlantic English (Hardcover)

I bought this author's book on London and happened to notice that he wrote this one too, so I picked it up. Glad I did! It's really just what I needed for understanding the ins and outs of British English. Everything is treated by subject matter and I have found the book a real gold mine for trying to figure out just what people are talking about here (in London). The methodical presentation of spelling differences is really informative - it goes a lot deeper than I thought! The chapter on grammar is useful too, and I skipped some of the technical terminology but the examples of usage really told me what I needed to know. And I actually started hearing a lot of this stuff, as soon as I read about it. Spooky! Maybe people were using these constructions all along and I just blanked it out because I didn't really understand everything. All the chapters that treat different subject areas are also laid out well, and I found the one on health and healthcare really helpful in my job; it's mind-blowing how different the NHS is from US healthcare, you really have to learn a whole new vocabulary for dealing with it (I thought surgery was something a doctor did, not a place where he worked!). The chapter about swear words and other language you should avoid is a hoot! And really, the author's sense of humor comes through everywhere; I found myself chuckling all the way through it, at the same time I was learning. Thanks to this book, I can follow a cricket match or read an article about one and actually understand what they're talking about. Who knew that would ever happen? I really recommend this book strongly to any American who deals with, or wants to get better acquainted with British English; it would probably also be useful for Brits trying to understand Yanks.



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Review of New Frontiers in Cognitive Aging (Hardcover)

Outstanding overview in a readable yet scholarly presentation.Up to date information usefule for researchers as well as lay people.



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Review of Derivatives: Valuation and Risk Management (Hardcover)

I have used Miller & Dubofsky to teach my undergraduate options class in the past and this year I switched to Hull (7th edition).I find that I much prefer the way Miller & Dubofsky is organized. A good example would be the treatment of forwards and futures.Miller & Dubofsky begin with forwards and move on to futures.In Hull they are treated together and this serves to confuse students, especially when it comes to valuation and marking to market.Another strength of the book is that risk management is addressed right away whereas in Hull it seems to be an afterthought.Hull's notation is also quite confusing for students.Hull tries to do everything using continuously compounded rates but for many instruments (FRAs and Interest Rate Swaps for instance) this is not possible.The result is a mish-mash of compounding conventions in the same formula.

There are a few weaknesses of the Miller & Dubofsky text as well but these tend to be minor.I think it would benefit by a second edition.




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Review of The Timber Bubble that Burst: Government Policy and the Bailout of 1984 (Hardcover)

Increadable Amasing Futureistic my joy at readinggoverment policy great magic inspiring I know things I never new before. Beutifull cover inspireing pages. Bright spitful interactive we are all hope full for abetter future



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Review of Recalibrating Retirement Spending and Saving (Hardcover)

Recalibrating Retirement Spending and Saving. John Ameriks and Olivia S. Mitchell, eds. Oxford University Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0-199-54910-8, 320 pages. doi:10.1017/S1474747209004077
Two leading researchers, John Ameriks and Olivia S. Mitchell, have organized and contributed to a highly informative and thought provoking book aimed at enhancing retiree financial decision making and security. It provides new analyses that helps us better understand the behavior of the retired population and a number of practical ideas. All the articles are uniformly good, and I comment only on a selected few.
2 Book reviews
The first section of the book covers key issues affecting retirement security. Sewin Chan and Ann Huff Stevens analyze the HRS to measure the extent of ``retirement reversal, '' and they find that about one in three older people move from a more retired to less retired state at some point. Combine that with the tendency to a variegated path to retirement, rather than retirement at once, highlights the need to re-conceptualize what retirement means. Erik Hurst conducts a careful analysis of several datasets to evaluate declines in consumption after retirement. He demonstrates that most types of spending stay the same or increase, but work-related consumption, such as for clothing, transportation, and expenditures for food, do decline. Less spending for clothing and transportation are easy to understand, food expenditures are more complex. But Hurst shows that, in most cases, retirees do not suffer a decline in the quality of food; rather better shopping habits and increased home production are mainly responsible. About one-fifth of the retired population does suffer a decline in food expenditures caused by economic want, and many of those experienced a health shock and retired involuntarily. This leads Hurst to the interesting suggestion that insurance products be developed to protect people's consumption when they suffer a health shock.
The second section addresses the impact of tax policy on Individual Retirement Account (IRA) withdrawals, bequests, and the ideal timing of Social Security claiming. Sarah Holden and Brian Reid offer an excellent analysis of withdrawals from IRAs. They show that individuals tend to hold onto IRAs as long as possible, and Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) are the main reason for withdrawals. To some extent, this indicates that tax policy has worked to keep these accumulations for retirement and old age, and to some extent it indicates a desire to maintain principal. James Mahaney and Peter Carlson contributed an excellent article on the ideal time to claim Social Security. They show that, for most primary earners, claiming benefits as late as possible is beneficial. Today, most workers do not do that so more effective claiming strategies can importantly strengthen financial security.
The third section brings forward a number of new ideas for financial strategies and products that promise to help retirees manage their assets more efficiently. William Sharpe, Jason Scott, and John Watson demonstrate convincingly that two financial strategies frequently recommended by financial advisors are sub-optimal. Specifically, it is inefficient to move assets from equities to fixed investments, when not accompanied by advice on how to adjust spending to market conditions. For example, it can be dangerous to propose the typical ``4% rule, '' which advises that a retiree should start withdrawing this fraction of assets and then adjust upward by inflation, particularly when accompanied with advice to keep a substantial asset allocation in equities. The authors propose a better rule than one tied to investments.
Several articles deal with annuitization and health. Cassio Turra and Olivia Mitchell use modeling, supplemented by an analysis of HRS data to indicate that health conditions and anticipated out-of-pocket health care expenses often make life annuities sub-optimal with current life annuity pricing, which assumes anti-selection. The authors conclude that life annuities that provide higher payouts when there is a medical shock would make the product more attractive to many. John Ameriks, Andrew Caplan, Steven Laufer and Stijn Van Nieuweburgh examine the impact of Medicaid aversion and the bequest motive on receptivity to annuitize. Medicaid aversion is the level of undesirability of depending upon Medicaid to pay for long term care costs. They find that people who desire to leave an estate and the Medicaid-averse desire to have cash, making life annuities less attractive due to their lesser liquidity. This leads the authors to suggest annuity structures that provide additional funds if the need arises for long term care. They model the higher level of interest for these products among the segment who have no bequest motive and are Medicaid-averse (the best target market for this product). Finally, David Brazell, Jason Brown and Mark Warshwsky discuss a combination life annuity and long term care insurance approach, one granted tax benefits under the 2009 Pension Protection Act. Combining insurance protection against long term care costs with a life annuity is believed to reduce anti-selection, reduce the cost of long term care insurance, and help extend protection against covered risks.
Book reviews 3
One of the book's important contributions is its deeper understanding of the retired population's heterogeneity and the need for specific solutions for key segments, particularly since many retirees are not in excellent health. Overall, the articles cover important topics and are well researched, and it offers a welcome mix of authors, both academics and practitioners. The volume will be of interest to a broad range of people, providing academics with new insights and suggestions for research questions, policymakers with suggestions for enhancing retirement security, private market product designers with new ideas for insurance products and insights on target markets, and financial advisors who will find a critique of some commonly used financial strategies.
MATHEW GREENWALD
Mathew Greenwald & Associates, Inc.



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Review of The Hidden Cost of Being African American: How Wealth Perpetuates Inequality (Hardcover)

Make no mistake about it.The snide comment by Washington Post reviewer Michael Hout above indicates a fundamental inability to comprehend what Shapiro is saying.Why would Hout choose to write this in his review?:

"Families and generations are at the core of Shapiro's analysis. So I was surprised that he did not directly address how marriage and family structure fit into the cycles of accumulation, inheritance and investment. Married couples accumulate more wealth than single parents do, according to other researchers. That suggests to me that African-American family issues must play a role in the wealth gap."

Hout obviously is attempting to make a point about the high rate of single parent families within Black America, and is implying that if only Black women chose to marry the fathers of their babies that they would not suffer many of the consequences Shapiro lays out in his book.There is but one problem:Shapiro addresses this lame-ass "culture of poverty" nonsense repeatedly in his book, and convincingly shows that even if Black marriage rates were equal to white rates that African-Americans would STILL have less wealth, educational opportunities, and transformative assets.Moreover, Shapiro does a good job of pointing out the motivations behind WHY whites like Mr. Houst consistenly resort to the same trite culturalist arguments of Black pathology when confronted with the troubling facts:they can't bring themselves to admit that their white privilege was constructed and is maintained at the expense of people of color, especially Blacks, because it shatters their deep-seated need to believe that they "earned" everything that they have instead of having been bequeathed it as a result of generations of racial prejudice and institutional racism.

Perhaps the sublety of Mr. Shapiro's argument was a tad too much for Mr. Houst and his editors at the Washington Post.

If anything, Shapiro's argument can be argued from a left perspective to be an insufficient "liberal" formulation that refuses to engage and critique the structural inequalities of capitalism head-on, substituting a Ford Foundation-esque "asset accumulation" prescription for maladies that require far more radical measures.As authors such as Manning Marable have noted for years, much of American capitalism was structurally DESIGNED to UNDERDEVELOP Black America and continues to operate in this fashion.Thus arguing that Blacks simply need "more" wealth in order to achieve racial parity overlooks many sociological and anthropological insights about race developed over the past thirty years, as well as many Marxian insights about race that have been floating around for years as well.

Still, even as a half-measure, this is a highly enlightening and challenging read.It is sure to make many white families uncomfortable because they will probably see themselves in much of what Shapiro writes.Which is the point.



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Review of The Legacy of Fischer Black (Hardcover)

This book is an elucidation of the applied science of financial economics, as told through a dozen chapters contributed by many of the preeminent researchers in the field.While none of the material draws directly from Fischer Black's own work, the spirit of the research is what drove Lehmann to select these particular examples.Most of the twelve chapters in this volume derive from talks given at the 1996 Berkeley conference on finance in honor of Fischer Black.In addition to these historic presentations, Lehmann added his own comprehensive summary of the work of Fischer Black, from the Sharpe-Treynor CAPM applied to Black's relatively overlooked wheat economy model, to Black's zero-beta CAPM, to Black's empirical investigations and collaborations, to the Black-Scholes-Merton options pricing model, to his work on international asset pricing and asset allocation, as well as Black's rigorous treatment of business cycles and macroeconomics.Also fortuitously added is a contribution on "Crisis and Risk Management" by one of Black's most famous collaborators, Myron Scholes, who provides an excellent review of this critical subject from the unique perspective ofa Nobel Laureate with first-hand experience in managing the Long Term Capital Management liquidity crisis.Also added is a beautiful review of the contributions of Black, Merton and Scholes to economics by the 2003 Financial Engineer of the Year as voted by the IAFE, Darrell Duffie.

Stewart Myers, who in 1976 published Black's "Dividend Puzzle" paper, as well as Black's astounding reinterpretation of Jack Treynor's1962-1963 MIT presentations of CAPM, in his wonderful text "Modern Developments in Financial Management", reviews Black's many contributions to corporate finance, including real options and accounting issues.

Bob Litterman provides a treatment of risk budgeting as currently practiced at Goldman Sachs, many of the approaches having been pioneered when Black was a partner there.This chapter reminded me of my days as a young analyst in Goldman's Asset Management division, when the following story circulated amongst the troops: At one presentation on risk management to some brokers, someone in the audience asked Black, who was the presenter, "If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?" To which Black calmly reflected for a moment and then replied, "If you're so rich, why aren't you smart?"

Although there is no substantial difference between the models in Black-Litterman (1991) and Black's earlier collaboration with Jack Treynor in their 1973 paper, "How to Use Security Analysis to Improve Portfolio Selection",Lehmann's compilation treats theearlier paper for the first time in Steve Ross' excellent chapter on noisy rational expectations.This chapter provides a theoretical explanation for the existence of intermediation in capital markets, such as mutual funds, which accommodates an unstable equilibrium.

Mark Rubinstein and Jens Jackwerth's chapter on imputing risk-neutral probabilities from options prices, asset prices and the risk-free rate takes a general equilibrium approach much similar to the approach favored by Black.Scott Richard adds a negatively-correlated factor to the one-factor model of Black-Karasinski in order to better price term structure derivatives.Douglas Breeden examines the empirical negative convexity (why don't they simply refer to it as "concavity"?) in the mortgage market.Huang and Stoll examine the returns of liquidity providers on the NYSE and find thatliquidity providers such as specialists and dealers profit at the expense of public limit orders.

Brennan, Chordia and Subrahmanyam analyze 13 years of data, use individual securities in order to avoid the problems associated with forming artificial portfolios, and, using APT-style factors, find that after adjusting for risk, mean asset returns are significantly related to certain firm characteristics: size, analyst following, membership in the S&P 500 index, 12 month lagged returns, and the bid-ask spread (negative!).Lehmann provides a discussion of the Brennan et al paper in Chapter 8, discussing the problematic nature of their task, suggesting potential methodological improvements to their procedure and discussing the portfolio formation issue as well as the data-mining aspect of the specification searches.

While a title like "The Legacy of Fischer Black" might whet potential readers' appetites for a volume reprinting Black's own work, Lehmann has done a masterful job of both describing Black's own work and assembling a current group of research that is similar in spirit to the type of work in which Black was interested and engaged.This volume, paired perhaps with Perry Mehrling's "Fischer Black and the Revolutionary Idea of Finance" will provide the reader with a relatively comprehensive overview of the incredible work in economics performed by Fischer Black and his successors.





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Review of Global Banking (Economics & Finance) (Hardcover)

A great book. Exciting to read, clearly written and full of practical insights into global banking.Discusses tenable strategies for financial firms world-wide and contains insights that are difficult to find anywhereelse.The authors taught a course based on this book at INSEAD and thebook retains the liveliness and rigor of that excellent course.

A mustbuy for anyone connected with or interested in the structure and strategiesof global finance firms.



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Review of What Remains: A Memoir of Fate, Friendship, and Love (Hardcover)

4.5 stars
"Orson Wells said to Gore Vidal once, in an interview about a movie he was writing, 'if you want a happy ending, it depends on where you stop your story'". Carole Radziwell begins her book with this quote and understands this all too well. Her book is such a story about love and loss and recovery.

Carole DiFalco lived and grew up in Suffern, New York, 40 odd miles from New York City, but it was a lifetime away in reality. She had a proper childhood and grew up in a close knit family; they all loved to cook and loved their grandmother, the center of the family. At the age of 19, Carole realized she needed to move on with her life and took a job at "ABC News". This job led her to many adventures in Cambodia, Tel Aviv, and Saigon. As she worked her way up the ladder to Assistant Producer, she felt more comfortable with herself and her life. She was sent to California to work on the Mendoza murder trials ,and there she met the love of her life, Anthony Radziwell. Anthony also worked for ABC, and they started a romance that built slowly over a couple of years. At last they realized they were in love and Anthony proposed.

Moving into the whirl of the Radziwell family was no small feat. This is a large family with close connections to everything and everybody. Carole's mother-in-law, Lee Radziwell, was the sister of Jackie Kennedy, and was once married to aPolish Prince. Anthony's closest and best friend was John Kennedy Jr., and his girlfriend and then wife, Carolyn, became Carole's closest friend. Carole and Carolyn felt a kinship, outsiders in this famous family, and slowly they began to find a place in the family. There are several references to the difficulty of living within the social whirl for both Carole and Carolyn.The center of Carole's universe, Anthony finds a large "lump" on his abdomen several months before they were married. This bump turns out to be a sarcoma, a cancer. There are many surgeries and over the five years of their marriage, much of it is spent in hospitals, clinics and/or gathering information about the new and next therapies.Carole develops the role of organizer, and it is she who leads the troops to win over the cancer. Anthony is the unwilling participant, and the rest of the family supports them both but play parts in the periphery.Carolyn Kennedy becomes the friend Carole Radziwell needs. She is there to offer comfort and solace and to bring a little life into the depressive life of those who have or care for someone with metastasic cancer. We see the love that John Jr and Carolyn have for each other.

Of course we all know the ending. The tragic airplane crash of Carolyn, her sister,Lauren, and John Kennedy, and then the death of Anthony two weeks later. The time of mourning and the slow recovery are explored. Carole Radziwell relays a little of the life of the Kennedy's, but not in a "gossipy" manner, but that of the emotional roller coaster that entails her life.Such an inspiring story, sure to hit the chord of anyone who has gone through the hard times in life. She gives us a first hand account of the loves and losses we all have in our life. She has a gift of a true writer and has shown us her deep insights.

"Fortune gives us nothing which we can really own". Seneca

Highly recommended. prisrob



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Review of Garner's Modern American Usage (Hardcover)

For three generations, a single book dominated the market as the authoritative reference in matters of grammar, style, and usage in the English language: "A Dictionary of Modern English Usage" by H.W. Fowler, first published in 1926, ably revised by Sir Ernest Gowers in 1965, and now in its third edition (published 1996). But by the century's last quarter, the modern English language -- particularly its American dialect -- had begun outgrowing Fowler, and several newer guides began competing with it. The third (1996) edition of Fowler was a disappointment, and left the field without a clear leading authority.

That gap was filled in 1998, when Bryan A. Garner wrote "A Dictionary of Modern American Usage" (published by the Oxford University Press, which also published Fowler). Finally, someone had written a book that matched Fowler -- not only in its erudition, but also in its accessible style, and even its wry sense of humor. And Garner's book had the advantages of being written both in modern times for a modern audience, and in the United States by an American author about American English. The book is a gem, and as authoritative a reference as you will find in this field in the last several decades (and probably the next several too).

"Garner's Modern American Usage" is this oustanding work's second edition, now retitled after its author in view of the acclaim that the first edition earned. A new edition is appearing after only five years because, as Garner explains, "changing usage isn't really the primary basis for a new edition of a usage guide: it's really a question of having had five more years for research." The payoff shows. And the second edition builds upon the first: the first edition was a dictionary of words in usage, rather than words about usage, and therefore assumed that the reader possessed a certain working knowledge of basic grammatical terms and concepts. For example, the first edition didn't define such basic terms as "sentence," "phrase," "clause," "word," or "part of speech." The second edition appends a glossary that defines many such basic concepts. It also appends, as did the first edition, an 11-page chronology of books about usage, which illustrates both the rich tradition that Garner's work joins, as well as the tremendous resources upon which he drew in producing this magnum opus.



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