Introduction to the Economics of Financial Markets

by Bradfield, James

• ISBN13: 9780195310634
• ISBN10: 0195310632
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-02-08
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

There are many textbooks for business students that provide a systematic, introductory development of the economics of financial markets. However, there are as yet no introductory textbooks aimed at more easily daunted undergraduate liberal arts students. Introduction to the Economics ofFinancial Markets fills this gap by providing an extremely accessible introductory exposition of how economists analyze both how, and how well, financial markets organize the intertemporal allocation of scarce resources. The central theme is that the function of a system of financial markets is toenable consumers, investors, and managers of firms to effect mutually beneficial intertemporal exchanges. James Bradfield uses the standard concept of economic efficiency (Pareto Optimality) to assess the efficacy of the financial markets. He presents an intuitive, and introductory, understandingof the primary theoretical and empirical models that economists use to analyze financial markets, and then uses these models to discuss implications for public policy. Students who use this text will acquire an understanding of the economics of financial markets that will enable them to read, withsome sophistication, articles in the public press about financial markets and about public policy toward those markets. The book is addressed to undergraduate students in the liberal arts, but will also be useful for undergraduate and beginning graduate students in programs of businessadministration who want an understanding of how economists assess financial markets against the criteria of allocative and informational efficiency.

Table of Contents

Introduction

The Economics of Financial Markets

Financial Markets and Economic Efficiency

Intertemporal Allocation by Consumers and Firms When Future Payments are Certain

The Fundamental Economics of Intertemporal Allocation

The Fisher Diagram for Optimal Intertemporal Allocation

Maximizing lifetime utility in a firm with many shareholders

A Transition to Models in which Future Outcomes Are Uncertain

Rates of Return as Random Variables

Probabilistic Models

Portfolio Theory and Capital Asset Pricing Theory

Portfolio Theory

The Capital Asset Pricing Model

The Informational Efficiency and the Allocative Efficiency of Financial Markets: The Concepts

The Efficient Market Hypothesis

Event StudiesPart VI:The Informational and Allocative Efficiency of Financial Markets: Applications

Capital Structure

Options

Futures Contracts

Insider Trading

Summary and Conclusions

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