The known, the unknown, and the unknowable in financial risk management

measurement and theory advancing practice

Eds. Francis X. Diebold, Neil A. Doherty, Richard J. Herring. A clear understanding of what we know, don't know, and can't know should guide any reasonable approach to managing financial risk, yet the most widely used measure in finance today - Value at Risk ...

Labor markets and business cycles

"Labor Markets and Business Cycles" integrates search and matching theory with the neoclassical growth model to better understand labor market outcomes. Robert Shimer shows analytically and quantitatively that rigid wages are important for explaining the volatile behavior of the unemployment rate in business cycles. The ...

Reputation and power

organizational image and pharmaceutical regulation at the FDA

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is the most powerful regulatory agency in the world. How did the FDA become so influential? And how exactly does it wield its extraordinary power? "Reputation and Power" traces the history of FDA regulation of pharmaceuticals, revealing how ...

Working together

collective action, the commons, and multiple methods in practice

Advances in the social sciences have emerged through a variety of research methods: field-based research, laboratory and field experiments, and agent-based models. However, which research method or approach is best suited to a particular inquiry is frequently debated and discussed. "Working Together" examines how different ...

Economic sociology

a systematic inquiry

The sociological study of economic activity has witnessed a significant resurgence. Recent texts have chronicled economic sociology's nineteenth-century origins while pointing to the importance of context and power in economic life, yet the field lacks a clear understanding of the role that concepts at ...

Understanding the process of economic change

In this landmark work, a Nobel Prize-winning economist develops a new way of understanding the process by which economies change. Douglass North inspired a revolution in economic history a generation ago by demonstrating that economic performance is determined largely by the kind and quality of ...

Prudes, perverts, and tyrants

Plato's Gorgias and the politics of shame

In recent years, most political theorists have agreed that shame shouldn't play any role in democratic politics because it threatens the mutual respect necessary for participation and deliberation. But Christina Tarnopolsky argues that not every kind of shame hurts democracy. In fact, she makes ...

The zodiac of Paris

how an improbable controversy over an Ancient Egyptian artifact provoked a modern debate between religion and science

The Dendera zodiac - an ancient bas-relief temple ceiling adorned with mysterious symbols of the stars and planets - was first discovered by the French during Napoleon's campaign in Egypt, and quickly provoked a controversy between scientists and theologians. Brought to Paris in 1821 and ultimately ...

The symptom and the subject

the emergence of the physical body in Ancient Greece

"The Symptom and the Subject" takes an in-depth look at how the physical body first emerged in the West as both an object of knowledge and a mysterious part of the self. Beginning with Homer, moving through classical-era medical treatises, and closing with studies of ...

Rational theory of international politics

the logic of competition and cooperation

Within the realist school of international relations, a prevailing view holds that the anarchic structure of the international system invariably forces the great powers to seek security at one another's expense, dooming even peaceful nations to an unrelenting struggle for power and dominance. "Rational ...

Fault lines

how hidden fractures still threaten the world economy

Raghuram Rajan was one of the few economists who warned of the global financial crisis before it hit. Now, as the world struggles to recover, it's tempting to blame what happened on just a few greedy bankers who took irrational risks and left the ...

Empires in wolrd history

power and the politics of difference

Empires - vast states of territories and peoples united by force and ambition - have dominated the political landscape for more than two millennia. "Empires in World History" departs from conventional European and nation-centered perspectives to take a remarkable look at how empires relied on diversity to ...

The Cattle of the sun

cows and culture in the world of the Ancient Greeks

Though Greece is traditionally seen as an agrarian society, cattle were essential to Greek communal life, through religious sacrifice and dietary consumption. Cattle were also pivotal in mythology: gods and heroes stole cattle, expected sacrifices of cattle, and punished those who failed to provide them ...

France's new deal

from the thirties to the postwar Era

"France's New Deal" is an in-depth and important look at the remaking of the French state after World War II, a time when the nation was endowed with brand-new institutions for managing its economy and culture. Yet, as Philip Nord reveals, the significant process ...

A political philosophy in public life

civic republicanism in Zapatero's Spain

This book examines an unlikely development in modern political philosophy: the adoption by a major national government of the ideas of a living political theorist. When Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero became Spain's opposition leader in 2000, he pledged that if his socialist party won ...

Why not kill them all?

the logic and prevention of mass political murder

Following the 9/11 attacks by Al-Qa'ida, President Bush declared war on terror. In the succeeding years, Western Governments have struggled to find the right way to respond to the new and deadly threat posed by terrorism. With the election of President Obama the ...

Alexander the Great an his Empire

a short introduction

This is the first publication in English of Pierre Briant's classic short history of Alexander the Great's conquest of the Persian empire, from the Mediterranean to Central Asia. Eschewing a conventional biographical focus, this is the only book in any language that sets ...

A short history of the Jews

"A Short History of the Jews" is the story of the Jewish people told in a sweeping and powerful historical narrative. Michael Brenner chronicles the Jewish experience from Biblical times to today, tracing what is at heart a drama of migration and change, yet one ...

The microtheory of innovative entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurs are widely recognized for the vital contributions they make to economic growth and general welfare, yet until fairly recently entrepreneurship was not considered worthy of serious economic study. Today, progress has been made to integrate entrepreneurship into macroeconomics, but until now the entrepreneur has ...

The new dynamic public finance

Optimal tax design attempts to resolve a well-known trade-off: namely, that high taxes are bad insofar as they discourage people from working, but good to the degree that, by redistributing wealth, they help insure people against productivity shocks. Until recently, however, economic research on this ...