Computing has become essential for the modeling, analysis, and optimization of systems. This book is devoted to algorithms, computational analysis, and decision models. The chapters are organized in two parts: optimization models of decisions and models of pricing and equilibria.

Computational models and methods are central to the analysis of economic and financial decisions. Simulation and optimisation are widely used as tools of analysis, modelling and testing. The focus of this book is the development of computational methods and analytical models in financial engineering that rely on computation. The book contains eighteen chapters written by leading researchers in the area on portfolio optimization and option pricing; estimation and classification; banking; risk and macroeconomic modelling. It explores and brings together current research tools and will be of interest to researchers, analysts and practitioners in policy and investment decisions in economics and finance.

At present, computational methods have received considerable attention in economics and finance as an alternative to conventional analytical and numerical paradigms. This Special Issue brings together both theoretical and application-oriented contributions, with a focus on the use of computational techniques in finance and economics. Examined topics span on issues at the center of the literature debate, with an eye not only on technical and theoretical aspects but also very practical cases.

The rapid changes that have taken place globally on the economic, social and business fronts characterized the 20th century. The magnitude of these changes has formed an extremely complex and unpredictable decision-making framework, which is difficult to model through traditional approaches. The main purpose of this book is to present the most recent advances in the development of innovative techniques for managing the uncertainty that prevails in the global economic and management environments. These techniques originate mainly from fuzzy sets theory. However, the book also explores the integration of fuzzy sets with other decision support and modeling disciplines, such as multicriteria decision aid, neural networks, genetic algorithms, machine learning, chaos theory, etc. The presentation of the advances in these fields and their real world applications adds a new perspective to the broad fields of management science and economics. Contents: Decision Making, Management and Marketing: Algorithms for Orderly Structuring of Financial OC ObjectsOCO (J Gil-Aluja); A Fuzzy Goal Programming Model for Evaluating a Hospital Service Performance (M Arenas et al.); A Group Decision Making Method Using Fuzzy Triangular Numbers (J L Garc a-Lapresta et al.); Developing Sorting Models Using Preference Disaggregation Analysis: An Experimental Investigation (M Doumpos & C Zopounidis); Stock Markets and Portfolio Management: The Causality Between Interest Rate, Exchange Rate and Stock Price in Emerging Markets: The Case of the Jakarta Stock Exchange (J Gupta et al.); Fuzzy Cognitive Maps in Stock Market (D Koulouriotis et al.); Neural Network vs Linear Models of Stock Returns: An Application to the UK and German Stock Market Indices (A Kanas); Corporate Finance and Banking Management: Expertons and Behaviour of Companies with Regard to the Adequacy Between Business Decisions and Objectives (A Couturier & B Fioleau); Multiple Fuzzy IRR in the Financial Decision Environment (S F Gonzilez et al.); An Automated Knowledge Generation Approach for Managing Credit Scoring Problems (M Michalopoulos et al.); and other papers. Readership: Financial managers, economists, management scientists and computer scientists."

This volume is centered around the issue of market design and resulting market dynamics. The economic crisis of 2007-2009 has once again highlighted the importance of a proper design of market protocols and institutional details for economic dynamics and macroeconomics. Papers in this volume capture institutional details of particular markets, behavioral details of agents' decision making as well as spillovers between markets and effects to the macroeconomy. Computational methods are used to replicate and understand market dynamics emerging from interaction of heterogeneous agents, and to develop models that have predictive power for complex market dynamics. Finally treatments of overlapping generations models and differential games with heterogeneous actors are provided.

This is the first book to introduce the major quantitative tools in risk management taking financial investments and logistics planning as the background: optimization and stochastic programming. Contained here are the fundamentals of portfolio selection theory from the point of view of risk control, and methods for risk control with new and popular risk measures such as VaR (Value-at-Risk) and CVaR (Conditional VaR). The book also introduces a new theory for risk management in more general investment situations such as flexible investment decisions, providing an accessible and comprehensive introduction to the interrelations between these fields of research. Basic concepts of stochastic programming are introduced, and their applications to risk management in inventory distribution and network design are covered as well. Illustrated by carefully chosen examples and supported by extensive data analyses, this book is highly recommended to readers who seek an in-depth and up-to-date integrated overview of the ever-expanding theoretical and quantitative fields of risk management in financial investment and logistics planning.

The scope of this volume is primarily to analyze from different methodological perspectives similar valuation and optimization problems arising in financial applications, aimed at facilitating a theoretical and computational integration between methods largely regarded as alternatives. Increasingly in recent years, financial management problems such as strategic asset allocation, asset-liability management, as well as asset pricing problems, have been presented in the literature adopting formulation and solution approaches rooted in stochastic programming, robust optimization, stochastic dynamic programming (including approximate SDP) methods, as well as policy rule optimization, heuristic approaches and others. The aim of the volume is to facilitate the comprehension of the modeling and methodological potentials of those methods, thus their common assumptions and peculiarities, relying on similar financial problems. The volume will address different valuation problems common in finance related to: asset pricing, optimal portfolio management, risk measurement, risk control and asset-liability management. The volume features chapters of theoretical and practical relevance clarifying recent advances in the associated applied field from different standpoints, relying on similar valuation problems and, as mentioned, facilitating a mutual and beneficial methodological and theoretical knowledge transfer. The distinctive aspects of the volume can be summarized as follows: Strong benchmarking philosophy, with contributors explicitly asked to underline current limits and desirable developments in their areas. Theoretical contributions, aimed at advancing the state-of-the-art in the given domain with a clear potential for applications The inclusion of an algorithmic-computational discussion of issues arising on similar valuation problems across different methods. Variety of applications: rarely is it possible within a single volume to consider and analyze different, and possibly competing, alternative optimization techniques applied to well-identified financial valuation problems. Clear definition of the current state-of-the-art in each methodological and applied area to facilitate future research directions.

This book is designed to equip students to navigate through MS Excel and basic data computation methods, which are essential tools in research or professional settings and in classrooms. It illustrates the concepts used in research and data analysis and economic and financial decision-making in business and in daily life. The book will help students acquire knowledge and develop skills in statistical techniques and financial analysis using MS Excel. With illustrations and examples, it will help the readers to: Visualize, present, and analyze data through MS Excel spreadsheets and tables and create personal or business spreadsheets Learn how to work with spreadsheets, use formulae, and perform calculations and analysis Create tables including Pivot Tables Become familiar with basic statistical and financial measures Design creative spread sheets and communicate effectively in business using spreadsheets and data analysis This revised and updated second edition will be an essential resource for students of economics, commerce, management, and other social science subjects, and will be useful to those studying econometrics, financial technology, basic computational techniques, data analysis, and applied economics. Content The book is developed through three phases, with each phase standing on its own as well as providing a foundation for the next. In the first phase, Excel is introduced for the students to learn entry of data, manipulation of data, carrying out operations and develop presentations. The second phase introduces basic statistical measures of data summarisation and analysis, following which these are illustrated in Excel spreadsheets with the techniques introduced in the first phase. In addition, a few advanced tools of statistical analysis are introduced and illustrated in Excel. The third phase introduces financial measures of common use, their general computation and working them out in Excel. The book intends to illustrate the concepts used in economic and financial decision-making in business and in daily life; it helps demonstrate a deeper understanding from both theoretical and practical perspectives. An effort has been made to make the book student-friendly by using simple language and giving a number of illustrations in each chapter, solved in such a simple manner that they can be easily understood by the students. Practical questions have been included at the end of each chapter so that the students can independently solve them and test their understanding of the concepts and computations introduced in the chapter. Outcome At the end, students will be able to describe what a spreadsheet is and what Excel’s capabilities are and can work with elements that make up the structure of a worksheet. They will be able to work with spreadsheets and enter data in Excel, use formulae and calculations, and create tables, charts and pivot tables. They will be familiar with basic statistical and financial measures of general use. They will be able to do basic computations in statistics and finance in Excel. Students will acquire the capacity to create personal and/or business spreadsheets following current professional and/or industry standards. Their potential for critical thinking to design and create spreadsheets and communicate in a business setting using spreadsheet vocabulary will be enhanced. In the digital age, students necessarily need to know data, data sources and how to ‘dirty’ their hands with data. There can be no substitute to ‘talking through numbers’. The book introduces students to a variety of Indian and International data sources and teaches them how to import data-be it social, economic, financial and so on-to the Excel sheet. Once they master it, the data world is there for them to conquer! The educational background required for the student to understand the text is some basic English and Mathematics of school-leaving level. Some fl air for numbers will be an asset and for them it will be a breeze; others will have to make an effort but ample illustrations and practice questions make life simple, whether it is basic statistics or slightly intricate finance!

This book presents frontier research on the use of computational methods to model complex interactions in economics and finance. Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and simulations offer effective means of analyzing and learning from large as well as new types of data. These computational tools have permeated various subfields of economics, finance, and also across different schools of economic thought. Through 16 chapters written by pioneers in economics, finance, computer science, psychology, complexity and statistics/econometrics, the book introduces their original research and presents the findings they have yielded. Theoretical and empirical studies featured in this book draw on a variety of approaches such as agent-based modeling, numerical simulations, computable economics, as well as employing tools from artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms. The use of computational approaches to perform counterfactual thought experiments are also introduced, which help transcend the limits posed by traditional mathematical and statistical tools. The book also includes discussions on methodology, epistemology, history and issues concerning prediction, validation, and inference, all of which have become pertinent with the increasing use of computational approaches in economic analysis.