Search Results

Working capital management is one of the most important topics in corporate finance: it relates to the operating investment of a firm and the way managers choose to finance it. This topic, mostly ignored by academics for years, is now gaining importance as we realize that financial markets are not as efficient as they were assumed to be, especially as firms expand outside the developed economies. This book provides a general framework that helps to understand working capital in a comprehensive approach, linking operating decisions to their financial implications and to the overall business strategy.

This book, which is part of the distinguished Clarendon Lectures in Economics series, puts forward a unique and authoritative set of detailed proposals for establishing new markets for the management of the biggest economic risks facing governments and society. Robert Shiller argues that we have largely the wrong financial markets, and that establishing new ones may fundamentally alter and diminish international economic fluctuations (and thus enable better risk management) and reduce the inequality of incomes. Shiller argues that although some risks, such as natural disaster or temporary unemployment, are shared by society, most risks are borne by the individual, and standards of living are determined by luck. He investigates whether a new technology of markets could make risk sharing possible and shows how new contracts could be designed to hedge all manner of risks to the individual's living standards. He proposes new international markets for perpetual claims on national incomes, and on components and aggregates of national incomes, concluding that these markets may well dwarf our stock markets in their activity and significance. He also argues for new liquid international markets for residential and commercial property. Establishing such unprecedented new markets presents some important technical problems that Shiller attempts to solve with proposals for implementing futures markets on perpetual claims on incomes, and for the construction of index numbers for cash settlement of risk management contracts. These new markets could fundamentally alter and diminish international economic fluctuations, and reduce the inequality of incomes around the world. Much of the book is technical, and it is intended mostly for economists, contract designers at futures and options exchanges, originators of swaps and other financial deals, and designers of retail products associated with risk management (such as insurance, pension plans, and mortgages). However, the material within the book is mostly arranged so that a non‐technical reader can follow the broad themes, and until Ch. 6, most of the technical material is relegated to appendices.