The English Economy from Bede to the Reformation

Book Description

This book consists of a collection of articles on social and economicthemes which range from a discussion of the social scene in the seventhcentury into which Bede was born, to an analysis of the inevitablelimitations of farming development in the sixteenth century. There is an article which attempts, yet again, to shed more light upon what contemporaries expected Domesday Book to reveal; and others which tackle problems raised by the workings of the manorin the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The beneficent consequences of the Black Death upon the fortunes of those who lived in town and country are considered in a short series of essays which analyse such problems as economic conditions before the Black Death; the extraordinary failure of the Black Death to make any serious impact upon the economy for a generation after its arrival; and the thriving of the towns as numbers fell in the kingdom but individual incomes rose.
Of special interest is an exciting new discovery about Domesday Book relating to Domesday assessments of manorial income, which merits careful reading and further investigation.
A.R. BRIDBURYtaught at the London School of Economics, where he ran the medieval section of the economic history department for many years.

Average customer rating:

Painfully boring but insightful

Law and the Shaping of the American Labor Movement
William E. Forbath
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Labor & Industrial Relations | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
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Labor & Industrial Relations | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
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General | Americas | History | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

If the Workers Took a Notion: The Right to Strike and American Political Development

The People's Welfare: Law and Regulation in Nineteenth-Century America (Studies in Legal History)

A Judgment for Solomon: The d'Hauteville Case and Legal Experience in Antebellum America (Cambridge Historical Studies in American Law and Society)

From Bondage to Contract: Wage Labor, Marriage, and the Market in the Age of Slave Emancipation

The Other Women's Movement: Workplace Justice and Social Rights in Modern America (Politics and Society in Twentieth Century America)

ASIN: 0674517822

Book Description

Why did American workers, unlike their European counterparts, fail to forge a class-based movement to pursue broad social reform? Was it simply that they lacked class consciousness and were more interested in personal mobility? In a richly detailed survey of labor law and labor history, William Forbath challenges this notion of American "individualism." In fact, he argues, the nineteenth-century American labor movement was much like Europe's labor movements in its social and political outlook, but in the decades around the turn of the century, the prevailing attitude of American trade unionists changed. Forbath shows that, over time, struggles with the courts and the legal order were crucial to reshaping labor's outlook, driving the labor movement to temper its radical goals.

Customer Reviews:

Painfully boring but insightful.......2004-02-09

I am being forced to read this for a class on American Legal History. It is insightful and the arguments are compelling. The labor movement in the US was influenced to a great degree by the judiciary during the turn of the century decades. Court action changed the character of the labor movement from one of broad social reform to fragmented trade unionism and "Voluntarism." Voluntarism became predominant in labor's legal pretext, in part, due to:
1. "...the courts... principally determined how labor legislation, once passed, would fare."
2. Those legal victores for labor (Sherman Anti-Trust Act 1890, etc;) benefitted the institutions that labor was trying to protect itself from.
3. The courts repeatedly upheld "freedom of contract" arguments in In re Jacobs, Ritchie v. People, etc;
4. Judiciary attacked the economic weapons of labor: city-wide boycotts, symapthy strikes, etc;

Labor (AFL, Gompers, etc;) eventually asked for independent labor relations i.e., freedom to negotiate contracts without government intervention...

I believe that sums it up fairly well, but as a fair warning, this book is academic and painfully boring. If given a choice between hammering my balls flat or rereading this book, I would be forced to make a difficult decision indeed.

Book Description

In the early 1990s, South Africa experienced a remarkable transition to democracy. Nelson Mandela was freed from prison, his previously outlawed ANC was legalized, and all-race elections were held in 1994. What motivated South Africa's former white leaders to hand over the reins of power to a black government? And what are the prospects for economic and political freedom in post-apartheid South Africa?

The Origins and Demise of South African Apartheid addresses these questions, using public choice models to distill the essence of apartheid, to examine the reasons for its emergence in the first instance, and to study its subsequent evolution as the economy's structure changed. The authors evaluate the role of foreign economic sanctions and other international pressures in precipitating the fall of apartheid but find that domestic economic problems, caused by apartheid policies themselves, were more important than foreign sanctions in crippling the South African economy. Further perpetuation of apartheid would have meant even further declines in living standards for white as well as black South Africans.

The authors also examine the postapartheid constitution for clues on South Africa's future prosperity. Finally they identify procedural and substantive weaknesses in the constitution that need to be addressed in order to create the foundations for a truly free society.

The book will appeal to a wide audience of economists and political scientists, especially those interested in public choice and comparative systems, as well as to South Africa scholars in the fields of political science, history, and economics.

Anton D. Lowenberg is Professor of Economics, California State University, Northridge. William H. Kaempfer is Professor of Economics, University of Colorado, Boulder.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent study on the politics and economics of apartheid.......2000-03-28

Ten years ago, I wrote South Africa's War against Capitalism. Inspiration for the title came from the kind of arguments I heard during my several trips to South Africa, comments made by blacks and their supporters in the struggle against apartheid. The essence of their argument was that apartheid was a by-product of laissez-faire capitalism. For these people, including many academics and politicians, some variant of socialism would provide the cure. My research and counterarguments would have been far more productive and persuasive if I had had the benefit of the insightful analysis set forth in Anton D. Lowenberg and William H. Kaempfer's new book, The Origins and Demise of South African Apartheid: A Public Choice Analysis.

Lowenberg and Kaempfer provide powerful evidence for the Public Choice argument that South Africa's apartheid "was essentially a massive bureaucracy whose raison d'etre was the production of market regulations designed to effect wealth redistribution away from blacks and white mining and industrial capital owners in favor of white workers and agricultural capital owners. These regulations reflected the preferences of the median voter in an electorate dominated by white labor and rural constituencies." (p. 39)

Many people attribute the demise of South Africa's apartheid to international sanctions. Lowenberg and Kaempfer arrive at a different conclusion: "The white South African Government abdicated power because of a recognition that apartheid policies were becoming too costly to maintain. The main costs associated with apartheid were self-imposed as a consequence of years of misguided development strategies on the part of the National Party government and its predecessors. Although external events such as the oil price shocks of the 1970s and international reaction to apartheid after the Soweto riots of 1976 contributed to the slow growth of the South African economy, even more significant was the fact that the economy had undergone changes which had turned the apartheid system, once an asset for important groups of the white population, into a liability." (p. 218)

Lowenberg and Kaempfer devote several chapters to the sanctions issue. They show that despite claims that the goal of sanctions is to make targeted countries change objectionable domestic policies, sanctions more likely serve the interests of pressure groups within the sanctioning countries....

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Independent Review, published by Independent Institute on June 22, 1999. The length of the article is 1658 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The Origins and Demise of South African Apartheid: A Public Choice Analysis.(Review)
Author: Walter E. Williams
Publication: Independent Review (Refereed)
Date: June 22, 1999
Publisher: Independent Institute
Volume: 4 Issue: 1 Page: 140

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Book Description

David Peoples reveals how you can reach the decision makers at the top and clinch the sale. It's tougher than ever to win over today's customers, but it helps to have David Peoples on your side. This internationally known author, speaker, and sales trainer has already trained over 8,000 IBM salespeople in his highly successful sales program. He gives you proven strategies for getting your foot in the top executive's door, building a relationship, and making the sale. In Selling to the Top, he tells you:

How to quickly identify the decision makers
How to figure out who is the Dominant Influencer (DI)
How to meet Mr./Ms. Big(It's much easier than you think)
How to size up Mr./Ms. Big before you've met
How to develop a detailed plan for calling on executives and how to talk their language by knowing their goals
Everything you'll need to know about the art of persuasion, including how to win, three things that are necessary to persuade another person, how to build trust, and the five most powerful buying motives
How to differentiate yourself from your competitor

Based on real hands-on sales experience at the highest level, Selling to the Top contains a wealth of information that can help turn you into a different kind of salesperson and increase your sales growth beyond your greatest expectations.

Customer Reviews:

Useful, realistic, comprehensive - must have........2007-01-08

I have been in sales for more than eight years and read plenty of books on this issue. I usually found those books either boring, either far from the real life, or simply stupid.

But Selling to the Top - is very different.

This book:
1. Gave me food for new thoughts.
2. Structured and systemized some of my approaches that I was doing by intuition.
3. Confirmed my understanding of sales profession.

I have found only one weak point of the book: the author does not cover an aspect of how to start business with the customer from scratch - when the customer has never used your product, service or solution before. I think it could be very interesting for sales people in start-ups and in compnaies on so called emerging markets.

In general this is the best book on Sales I have read so far.

Donna L. Cohen Author of "GO BIG or Stay Home!" agrees that Selling To The Top is "the resource" for Professional Salespeople.......2005-10-21

If your product or service includes big money, multiple decision makers, a long sales cycle, top management approval, and an ongoing relationship, then this book is for you!

Buy it!

Useful for 1970. For 2003...?.......2003-05-19

"Selling to the Top" is a well-organized presentation of the communication elements needed to stimulate organizational action from the top down. Motivating someone else to act is, after all, a matter of "selling." In turn, selling is a person-to-person dynamic. This emphasis on people is a welcome respite from the flow-chart, statistic-driven style of communication that is usually expected today.

The strategy presented in this book is predicated on empathy for the other person. "Find of what they need, then give it to them" is a singularly pivotal quote from the text. Such empathy is attained only through a great deal of preparation, and "preparation" is a major subtext of this book. In reading this book, most elements may seem familiar (if not obvious). The real value is in the way the book organizes these elements systematically to make a whole, coherent communication strategy. This is a blueprint for helping the reader to more successfully identify, engage, and sustain business relationships.

However, there are limitations. Mr. Peoples (born 1930) is of the quiet generation, and the interpersonal style that he recommends is in lock-step with the 1950s and 60s. The same is true of Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People." The chummy approach presented here still fits with mainstream middle-America, especially where suburban, country-club culture is resplendent. However, demographic evolution will increasingly challenge this style template. Emerging ethnic and cultural frameworks impose new verbal and visual cues. "Selling to the Top" will still be of some use in navigating new demographics in the business world, but someone needs to write a follow-up to this dated style guide.

Must-Read Book for professional sales people.......2002-05-11

This book is very informative. I have over 20 years of sales experience and seldom read How-To Sell books because I don't believe in theory and advices that much, preferring to do it the hard way (by the seat of the pants, intuition and personal experience and mistakes). When I read this book, I could not but agree more with David Peoples' observations and recommended systematic approach to attacking an account/opportunity. I have unconsciously (or naturally) done most of what Peoples has recommended in his book (obviously NOT as thoroughly as prescribed, we must not forget that it is always easier to say or write about than done). If nothing else, this book forces you to be more rigorous and strategic in your approach to selling and if the type of opportunity that you are pursuing justifies the efforts then its prescribed approach is certainly a very useful and effective one.
The [person] who gave this book a bad review certainly has never sold anything of substantial value in his life. This approach obviously only makes sense for selling big ticket items, Peoples has sold IBM hardware and services and not TV sets.

Sell High - Make Money.......2002-03-14

This book will change your life as a Salesperson. Customers WANT you to use this methodology. Don't waste their time. DO discuss their problems and how you can solve them. These are not gimmicks, the concepts here are real. Bottom Line: Take it from a rep that went from $100K per year in commissions to over $1M a year using these techniques.

Book Description

The estimation and validation of the Basel II risk parameters PD (default probability), LGD (loss given default), and EAD (exposure at default) is an important problem in banking practice. These parameters are used on the one hand as inputs to credit portfolio models, on the other to compute regulatory capital according to the new Basel rules. The book covers the state-of-the-art in designing and validating rating systems and default probability estimations. Furthermore, it presents techniques to estimate LGD and EAD. A chapter on stress testing of the Basel II risk parameters concludes the monograph.

Customer Reviews:

A good introduction.......2007-08-07

For anyone who needs to learn the financial philosophy and mathematical formalism behind the Basel II accords, this book will be an excellent introduction. Consisting of a collection of articles written competently and concisely, the book should be on the shelf of those who are not only responsible for implementing the Basel II accords but also work in the trenches on how to validate it with respect to the banking institutions in which they are employed. The technical details behind the Basel II accords are straightforward to understand mathematically, but the accords can be delicate to implement from a data collection standpoint. However the latter is not addressed in this book, with emphasis primarily given to the formalism and how to validate it in real situations.

Due to its mathematical rigor the chapter on PD validation by R. Rauhmeier is one of the more valuable ones in the book. It deals with mathematical methods for assessing the quality of estimates for PD, but gives examples from practical banking experience. Most interesting is that the author discusses how to compare rating systems developed by human experts with those that result from machines (algorithmic ratings with no human input). Along these lines, the author views a rating system as essentially a collection of modules, the first one of which is called a `machine rating' since it estimates the PD by an algorithm based on statistical models and not therefore dependent on human judgment (excluding the judgment of the developer of the algorithm of course). The machine rating is then subjected to expert opinion in the second module, wherein it is expected that the rating will be adjusted according to the judgments (and biases) of the (human) expert. The third module is also very standardized, and deals with the degree to which the borrower is supported by others when in financial distress. Any support structure that exists will of course influence the PD of the borrower. Manual overrides that arise because of exceptional situations are part of the fourth and final module. The author views the rating model as `default generating process' which is function of certain selected risk drivers, and is typically measured in terms of rating scales. He gives an example of a `master scale' in this chapter, with this one deploying a "point-in-time" rating approach.

Most of the chapter is devoted to finding PD validation methods that can test all the rating grades simultaneously. One of these is the Spiegelhalter test, which uses as a test statistic the ratio of the difference between the observed mean square error and the expected mean square and the square root of the variance of the mean square error. If the null hypothesis, namely that the forecasted and observed default probabilities are equal for every obligor, then this ratio is normally distributed and then standard techniques can be used. The Spiegelhalter test helps to remove the bias that exists in merely averaging the PDs of obligors in the same rating grade, but it does assume that the default events are independent. The assumption that the default events are independent can be dropped by using Monte Carlo simulations, and the author gives the reader a taste of how to do this in this chapter. As is typical in Monte Carlo simulations, random paths are generated in order to approximate the distribution of the test statistic. The author discusses an explicit simulation study using various choices of the asset correlation parameter, and it is clear that its value has a dramatic effect on the distribution of the test statistic. It would have been helpful if the author had expounded on how to calculate the value of the asset correlation parameter and discussed its connection with various credit risk models, such as the Merton model.

The last chapter of the book discusses stress testing, which the authors define as the study of risk characteristics to fictional perturbations or shocks. Stress testing is practiced widely in the financial industry, especially when sudden and dramatic losses occur in credit portfolios. These losses can surprise risk managers and create extreme skepticism towards the mathematical models used for forecasting. It follows of course that the Basel II accords would be interested in stress testing, but the authors of this chapter assert that they do not yet have the level of sophistication that one can find in the financial industry nor are they precise. The methods that the Basel II accords recommend are reviewed in this chapter. In this regard the authors point out that it is the probability of default (PD) that is the parameter of interest for stress testing, since the EAD and the LGD are relatively insensitive to radical events by their very definition. The PD is varied either by modifying rating grades or by modifying the PDs of the rating grades used for the stress test. The authors give an example of a stress test involving a very well-diversified "virtual" portfolio which shows the effects on regulatory and economic capital of various shocks, such as dramatic rises (and drops) in the oil price, recessions, and appreciative drops in the stock market index. Real portfolios they argue will exhibit even more dramatic effects, since they are not as diversified as this example. It would have been more helpful if the authors had included a more rigorous analysis, possibly one that uses Monte Carlo simulations or extreme value theory, but as applied to a practical situation that risk managers might encounter. One example might be the extreme losses that occurred in mortgage portfolios beginning in the third quarter of 2006. These losses took the risk community completely by surprise, and the forecasting models in place at the time, even though they underwent considerable stress testing before these losses began accelerating, were unable to predict them. The lesson to be learned from this example is that one must perform stress testing not with scenarios that may not have occurred in the past. The imagining of hypothetical scenarios that may shock a portfolio but that have never been realized in the past will be an important part of the future game of stress testing.

Good practice cooke book.......2007-05-21

Good by all segments of Basel II risk components. Especially on EAD, LGD and partly on retail the domains not so frequently worked out in other similar book. Perhaps some more effort on retail, concentrationa and economic capital. But that could be a new book allready. Stress test domain is good example.

Internal ratings systems, implied credit risk and the consistency of banks' risk classification policies [An article from: Journal of Banking and Finance]

Average customer rating:

Internal ratings systems, implied credit risk and the consistency of banks' risk classification policies [An article from: Journal of Banking and Finance]
T. Jacobson , J. Linde , and K. Roszbach
Manufacturer: Elsevier
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Credit Ratings & Repair | Personal Finance | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000RR9YO4

Book Description

This digital document is a journal article from Journal of Banking and Finance, published by Elsevier in 2006. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
This paper aims at improving our understanding of internal risk rating systems (IRS) at large banks, of the way in which they are implemented, and at verifying if IRS produce consistent estimates of banks' loan portfolio credit risk. An important property of our work is that the size of our data set allows us to derive measures of credit risk without making any assumptions about correlations between loans, by applying Carey's [Carey, Mark, 1998. Credit risk in private debt portfolios. Journal of Finance LIII (4), 1363-1387] non-parametric Monte Carlo re-sampling method. We find substantial differences between the implied loss distributions of two banks with equal ''regulatory'' risk profiles; both expected losses and the credit loss rates at a wide range of loss distribution percentiles vary considerably. Such variation will translate into different levels of required economic capital. Our results also confirm the quantitative importance of size for portfolio credit risk: for common parameter values, we find that tail risk can be reduced by up to 40% by doubling portfolio size. Our analysis makes clear that not only the formal design of a rating system, but also the way in which it is implemented (e.g. a rating grade composition; the degree of homogeneity within rating classes) can be quantitatively important for the shape of credit loss distributions and thus for banks' required capital structure. The evidence of differences between lenders also hints at the presence of differentiated market equilibria, that are more complex than might otherwise be supposed: different lending or risk management ''styles'' may emerge and banks strike their own balance between risk-taking and (the cost of) monitoring (that risk). han might otherwise be supposed: different lending or risk management ''styles'' may emerge and banks strike their own balance between risk-taking and (the cost of) monitoring (that risk). ear that the calibration of the Basel risk weight mappings and banks' internal borrower risk rating systems are not yet synchronized in a way that they result in consistent estimates of portfolio credit risk for regulators.

NAIC credit scoring focus makes a shift.(NAIC Fall Meeting Report)(National Association of Insurance Commissioners): An article from: National Underwriter ... & Casualty-Risk & Benefits Management

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NAIC credit scoring focus makes a shift.(NAIC Fall Meeting Report)(National Association of Insurance Commissioners): An article from: National Underwriter ... & Casualty-Risk & Benefits Management
Daniel Hays
Manufacturer: The National Underwriter Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Management | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Credit Ratings & Repair | Personal Finance | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This digital document is an article from National Underwriter Property & Casualty-Risk & Benefits Management, published by The National Underwriter Company on September 22, 2003. The length of the article is 804 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: NAIC credit scoring focus makes a shift.(NAIC Fall Meeting Report)(National Association of Insurance Commissioners)
Author: Daniel Hays
Publication: National Underwriter Property & Casualty-Risk & Benefits Management (Magazine/Journal)
Date: September 22, 2003
Publisher: The National Underwriter Company
Volume: 107 Issue: 38 Page: 42(1)

Distributed by Thomson Gale

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A Credit Risk-Rating System

Manufacturer: Risk Management Assoc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Credit Ratings & Repair | Personal Finance | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1570700044

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