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Financial theory and corporate policy 4th ed
The last forty years have seen a revolution in thought in the field of Finance. The basic questions remain the same. How are real and financial assets valued? Does the market place provide the best price signals for the allocation of scarce resources? What is meant by risk and how can it be incorporated into the decision-making process? Does financing affect value? These will probably always be the central questions. However, the answers to them have changed dramatically in the recent history of Finance. Forty years ago the field was largely descriptive in nature. Students learned about the way things were rather than why they came to be that way. Today the emphasis is on answering the question ? why have things come to be the way we observe them? If we understand why then we can hope to understand whether or not it is advisable to change things. The usual approach to the question of ?why? is to build simple mathematical models. Needless to say, mathematics cannot solve every problem, but it does force us to use more precise language and to understand the relationship between assumptions and conclusions. In their efforts to gain better understanding of complex natural phenomena, academicians have adopted more and more complex mathematics. A serious student of Finance must seek prerequisite knowledge in matrix algebra, ordinary calculus, differential equations, stochastic calculus, mathematical programming, probability theory, statistics and econometrics. This bewildering set of applied mathematics makes the best academic journals in Finance practically incomprehensible to the layman. In most articles, he can usually understand the introduction and conclusions, but little more. This has the effect of widening the gap between theory and application. The more scientific and more mathematical Finance becomes the more magical it appears to the layman who would like to understand and use it. We remember a quote from an old Japanese science fiction movie where a monster is about to destroy the world. From the crowd on screen an individual is heard to shout, ?Go get a scientist. He?ll know what to do!? It was almost as if the scientist was being equated with a magician or witchdoctor. By the way ? the movie scientist did know what to do. Unfortunately, this is infrequently the case in the real world. In order to narrow the gap between the rigorous language in academic Finance journals and the practical business world it is necessary for the academician to translate his logic from mathematics into English. But it is also necessary for the layman to learn a little mathematics. This is already happening. Technical words in English can be found unchanged in almost every language throughout the world. In fact, technical terms are becoming a world language. The words computer, transistor, and car are familiar throughout the globe. In Finance, variance is a precise measure of risk and yet almost everyone has an intuitive grasp for its meaning. This solutions manual and the textbook which it accompanies represent an effort to bridge the gap between the academic and the layman. The mathematics employed here is at a much lower level than in most academic journals. On the other hand it is at a higher level than that which the layman usually sees. We assume a basic understanding of algebra and simple calculus. We are hoping that the reader will meet us halfway. Most theory texts in Finance do not have end-of-chapter questions and problems. Notable exceptions were Fama?s Foundations of Finance and Levy and Sarnat?s Capital Investment and Financial Decisions. Problem sets are useful because they help the reader to solidify his knowledge with a hands-on approach to learning. Additionally, problems can be used to stretch the reader?s understanding of the textbook material by asking a question whose answer cannot be found in the text. Such extrapolative questions ask the student to go beyond simple feedback of something he has just read. The student is asked to combine the elements of what he has learned into something slightly different ? a new result. He must think for himself instead of just regurgitating earlier material. vi The objective of education is for each student to become his own teacher. This is also the objective of the end-of-chapter problems in our text. Consequently, we highly recommend that the solutions manual be made available to the students as an additional learning aid. Students can order it from the publisher without any restrictions whatsoever. It cannot be effectively employed if kept behind locked doors as an instructor?s manual. We wish to express our thanks to the following for their assistance in the preparation of this solutions manual: Betly Saybolt, and the MBA students at UCLA. We think the users will agree that we have broken some new ground in our book and in the end-ofchapter problems whose solutions are provided in this manual. If our efforts stimulate you, the user, to other new ideas, we will welcome your suggestions, comments, criticisms and corrections. Any kinds of communications will be welcome.
Call Number | Location | Available |
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Tan 338. 604 1 Cop f ( 4th ed ) | PSB lt.dasar - Pascasarjana | 8 |
Penerbit | New Jersey Prentice Hall., 2014 |
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Edisi | 4 |
Subjek | Financial theory Corporate policy |
ISBN/ISSN | 9781292021584 |
Klasifikasi | NONE |
Deskripsi Fisik | 920p; chart, tables, graphics, appendix, 28cm |
Info Detail Spesifik | Buku Wajib |
Other Version/Related | Tidak tersedia versi lain |
Lampiran Berkas | Tidak Ada Data |