Showing results by publisher "W. F. Howes Ltd" in Money & Finance

Wealthy, powerful and potentially dangerous, hedge fund managers have emerged as the stars of twenty-first-century capitalism. Based on unprecedented access to the industry, More Money Than God provides the first authoritative history of hedge funds. A saga of riches and rich egos, this is also a history of discovery. Drawing on insights from mathematics, economics and psychology to crack the mysteries of the market, hedge funds have transformed the world, spawning new markets in exotic financial instruments and rewriting the rules of capitalism.

All golden ages are marked by periods of spectacular cultural flourishing, scientific exploration, technological achievement and economic growth; yet no two are the same. Their beliefs, societies and place in the wider world all vary. Despite this, all previous golden ages have ended, whether it be because of external pressures or internal fracturing; too much hubris or too little wariness.

Bread, cash, dosh, dough, loot: Call it what you like, it matters. To Christians, love of it is the root of all evil. To generals, it's the sinews of war. To revolutionaries, it's the chains of labour. But in The Ascent of Money, Niall Ferguson shows that finance is in fact the foundation of human progress. What's more, he reveals financial history as the essential back-story behind all history.

Brian Clegg was always fascinated by Isaac Asimov's classic Foundation series of books, in which the future is predicted using sophisticated mathematical modelling of human psychology and behaviour. Only much later did he realise that Asimov's 'psychohistory' had a real-world equivalent: game theory. Originating in the study of probabilistic gambling games that depend on a random source—the throw of a dice or the toss of a coin—game theory soon came to be applied to human interactions: essentially, what was the best strategy to win, whatever you were doing?

The cohost of the popular NPR podcast Planet Money provides a well-researched, entertaining, somewhat irreverent look at how money is a made-up thing that has evolved over time to suit humanity's changing needs. Money only works because we all agree to believe in it. In Money, Jacob Goldstein shows how money is a useful fiction that has shaped societies for thousands of years, from the rise of coins in ancient Greece to the first stock market in Amsterdam to the emergence of shadow banking in the 21st century.

The controversial science that claims to have revolutionised economics. For centuries, economics was dominated by the idea that we are rational individuals who optimise our own ‘utility’. Then, in the 1970s, psychologists demonstrated that the reality is a lot messier. We don’t really know what our utility is, and we care about people other than ourselves. We are susceptible to external nudges. And far from being perfectly rational, we are prone to ‘cognitive biases’ with complex effects on decision-making, such as forgetting to prepare for retirement. 

Symptoms of decline are all around us today, it seems: slowing growth, crushing debts, aging populations, anti-social behaviour. But what exactly is amiss with Western civilization? The answer, Niall Ferguson argues, is that our institutions - the intricate frameworks within which a society can flourish or fail - are degenerating. To arrest the degeneration of the West's civilization, Ferguson warns, will take heroic leadership and radical reform.

Do you eat too much sugar? What proportion of your country are immigrants? What does it cost to raise a child? How much tax do the rich pay? Are we more ignorant than we used to be? Take a minute to answer these questions. No matter how educated you are, this audiobook suggests you are likely to be very wrong indeed. Informed by exclusive research across 40 countries, conducted by global polling firm Ipsos, The Perils of Perception investigates why we don't know basic facts about the world around us. 

A hidden set of rules governs who owns what - explaining everything from whether you can recline your airplane seat to why HBO lets you borrow a password illegally - and in this lively and entertaining guide, two acclaimed law professors reveal how things become 'mine'. Mine is one of the first words babies learn. By the time we grow up, the idea of ownership seems natural, whether buying a cup of coffee or a house. 

In the twelfth-century, Pisa was a thriving metropolis, a powerhouse of global trade, and a city that stood at the centre of Mediaeval Europe. But Pisa had a problem. It was running out of coins. In the face of financial crisis, it was here that the foundations of modern banking were born. In Money and Promises, the distinguished financier, entrepreneur and historian Paolo Zannoni examines the fascinating, complex relationship between states and banks.

Gross domestic product is failing. For decades it has rewarded environmental destruction and obscured inequality. Its formula can be - and has been - gamed to the detriment of developing countries. In this powerfully argued book, now updated with a new chapter, science writer Ehsan Masood shows how GDP fell from the path envisaged by its architects, and how its long-term misapplication has kept large parts of the world in poverty, while helping accelerate global warming and biodiversity loss. 

Digital influencing is one of the most exciting and disruptive new industries, forecast to be worth over £10bn by 2020, but those charged with making this an effective part of their digital strategy rarely understand how this emergent industry works. When it comes to online growth, digital influencers are now consistently outperforming traditional media and brand advertising, even if much of what they do remains a mystery to many people. Sara McCorquodale is the UK's leading authority on the influencer space, and this new book demystifies exactly how digital influence works. 

Through economics, our politicians have the power to transform people's lives for better or worse. Think Deng Xiaoping who lifted millions out of poverty by opening up China; Franklin D Roosevelt whose 'New Deal' helped the USA break free of the Great Depression; or Peron and his successors in Argentina who brought the country to the brink of ruin. In this magisterial history, economist and politician Vince Cable examines the legacy of 16 world leaders who transformed their countries' economic fortunes and who also challenged economic convention.

Envisage a world where inequality is shrinking, where natural resources are regenerated, and people can benefit from shared prosperity. In Impact, Sir Ronald Cohen proposes a new theory about how the Impact Revolution will enable us to achieve systemic social and environmental improvement. Impact investing is about creating a chain reaction. One that brings innovation to the stakeholders whose engagement is crucial to tackling massive social and environmental challenges at scale. 

The world's 'Big Four' accountancy firms - PwC, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, and KPMG - have become a gilded elite. Up in the high six figures, an average partner salary rivals that of a Premier League footballer. But how has the seemingly humdrum profession of accountancy got to this level? And what is the price we pay for their excesses? Leading investigative journalist Richard Brooks charts the profession's rise to global influence and offers a gripping exposé of the accountancy industry. 

In this original and deeply researched book, polling expert and professor of public policy Bobby Duffy explores how when we're born determines our attitudes to money, sex, religion, politics and much else. Informed by exclusive studies from IPSOS, as well as his own research, Duffy reveals that many of our preconceptions are just that: tired stereotypes.

We often assume that poor countries will bear the brunt of climate change, pandemics, and other exogenous shocks, but this book argues the opposite: western societies have more wealth and capital to lose, and are less inherently resilient. Icarus Economics shows how rich countries can help poor countries to decarbonise as they develop and, in the process, repair their own stagnating economies—as well as the planet.

Property carries a great promise: that it will make you rich and set you free. But it is also a weapon, an agent of displacement and exploitation, the currency of kleptocrats and oligarchs. Property is a vivid, far-reaching analysis of our concept of property ownership, from 16th-century feudalism to the present day. Above all, Property asks how we have come to view our homes not as a natural human right, but as investments—and it offers hope for how things could be better, with reform that might enable the social wealth of property to be returned to society.

It's Mine digs into the history and concept of ‘ownership', which ecosystems nurture it, and where we are now. Filled with anecdotes, observations and interviews, the book takes an entertaining and accessible look at how Bitcoin made its mark, how its technology is being re-purposed to enable a revolution, and (in non-technical terms) how it all works. It explores how these new crypto ‘life-forms' will interact with the rest of the virtual and physical world, while making some very rich and some very poor.

Through a colourful, entertaining examination of her own family—which in addition to her writer father Philip and her historian grandfather Arnold contains everyone from the Glenconners to Jessica Mitford to Bertrand Russell, and features ancestral home Castle Howard as a backdrop—Toynbee explores the myth of mobility, the guilt of privilege, and asks for a truly honest conversation about class in Britain.