Handbook of U.S. Consumer Economics presents a deep understanding on key, current topics and a primer on the landscape of contemporary research on the U.S. consumer. This volume reveals new insights into household decision-making on consumption and saving, borrowing and investing, portfolio allocation, demand of professional advice, and retirement choices. Nearly 70% of U.S. gross domestic product is devoted to consumption, making an understanding of the consumer a first order issue in macroeconomics. After all, understanding how households played an important role in the boom and bust cycle that led to the financial crisis and recent great recession is a key metric.

The De Gruyter Handbook of Personal Finance provides a robust review of the core topics comprising personal finance, including the primary models, approaches, and methodologies being used to study particular topics that comprise the field of personal finance today. The contributors include many of the world’s leading personal finance researchers, financial service professionals, thought leaders, and leading contemporary figures conducting research in this area whose work has shaped—and continues to affect—the way that personal finance is conceptualized and practiced. The first section of the handbook provides a broad introduction to the discipline of personal finance. The following two sections are organized around the core elements of personal finance research and practice: saving, investing, asset management, and financial security. The fourth section introduces future research, practice, and policy directions. The handbook concludes with a discussion on an educational and research agenda for the future. This handbook will be a core reference work for researchers, financial service practitioners, educators, and policymakers and an excellent supplementary source of readings for those teaching undergraduate and graduate-level courses in personal finance, financial planning, consumer studies, and household finance.

This book examines financial markets from a historical perspective. Bringing together contributions from leading historians of economic thought, economists and economic historians, it offers an integrated approach and reflects on the workings of financial markets, their impact on and relation with the rest of the economy and how their role was and is understood by economics. The contributions cover topics such as classical and modern economic thinking on financial markets and institutions, as well as financial models and innovations, and also present case studies on financial history and on policy issues. The historical perspective leads to a representation of markets not as abstract and timeless mechanisms but as institutions populated by a diversity of agents, subject to rules and customs, and influenced by scientific developments and economic theories.

In traditional theory of economic crisis, and in all its manifestations, there is no fundamental difference between economic disorder and economic crisis: the two types of economic turmoil are both considered temporary states. This book is a methodical study of deep-seated causes of economic crises. The aim of the book is to explain the key difference between economic disorder and economic crisis. Its key argument is that economic disorder is a permanent condition, whereas economic crises are a series of transitory periods. Economic crises, unlike economic disorders, are acute and frenzied volatilities that are unpredictable and short-lived. Humans cannot survive in a condition of perpetual economic crises but can only accommodate life under unremitting economic disorders. The book also explores the root cause of economic crisis. Unlike the received wisdom in economics, this book looks at the root cause of such hysterical economic turbulences as a result of an innate propensity of human fallibility. The final section of this book looks at the ramifications of this alternative perspective on macroeconomic policy formation and implementation. This book is a major contribution to the literature on economic disorder and crises and will be of great interest to readers of economic theory, philosophy of economics, and the history of economic thought.

Leveraging the research efforts of more than sixty experts in the area, this book reviews cutting-edge practices in machine learning for financial markets. Instead of seeing machine learning as a new field, the authors explore the connection between knowledge developed by quantitative finance over the past forty years and techniques generated by the current revolution driven by data sciences and artificial intelligence. The text is structured around three main areas: 'Interactions with investors and asset owners,' which covers robo-advisors and price formation; 'Risk intermediation,' which discusses derivative hedging, portfolio construction, and machine learning for dynamic optimization; and 'Connections with the real economy,' which explores nowcasting, alternative data, and ethics of algorithms. Accessible to a wide audience, this invaluable resource will allow practitioners to include machine learning driven techniques in their day-to-day quantitative practices, while students will build intuition and come to appreciate the technical tools and motivation for the theory.

Handbook of U.S. Consumer Economics presents a deep understanding on key, current topics and a primer on the landscape of contemporary research on the U.S. consumer. This volume reveals new insights into household decision-making on consumption and saving, borrowing and investing, portfolio allocation, demand of professional advice, and retirement choices. Nearly 70% of U.S. gross domestic product is devoted to consumption, making an understanding of the consumer a first order issue in macroeconomics. After all, understanding how households played an important role in the boom and bust cycle that led to the financial crisis and recent great recession is a key metric. - Introduces household finance by examining consumption and borrowing choices - Tackles macro-problems by observing new, original micro-data - Looks into the future of consumer spending by using data, not questionnaires