Pandora's Risk: Uncertainty at the Core of Finance (Columbia Business School Publishing)

Kent Osband

ISBN 10: 0231151721 / ISBN 13: 9780231151726

Published by Columbia University Press 2011-08-01, 2011

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 6666-WLY-9780231151726

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Pandora's Risk: Uncertainty at the Core of Finance (Columbia Business School Publishing)
• Publisher: Columbia University Press 2011-08-01
• Publication Date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0231151721
• ISBN 13: 9780231151726
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Author of the acclaimed work Iceberg Risk: An Adventure in Portfolio Theory, Kent Osband argues that uncertainty is central rather than marginal to finance. Markets don't trade mainly on changes in risk. They trade on changes in beliefs about risk, and in the process, markets unite, stretch, and occasionally defy beliefs. Recognizing this truth would make a world of difference in investing. Belittling uncertainty has created a rift between financial theory and practice and within finance theory itself, misguiding regulation and stoking huge financial imbalances.

Sparking a revolution in the mindset of the investment professional, Osband recasts the market as a learning machine rather than a knowledge machine. The market continually errs, corrects itself, and makes new errors. Respecting that process, without idolizing it, will promote wiser investment, trading, and regulation. With uncertainty embedded at its core, Osband's rational approach points to a finance theory worthy of twenty-first-century investing.

About the Author

Kent Osband has worked for twenty-five years as a strategist/economist for major investment firms, international financial institutions, and think tanks. He holds a B.A. magna cum laude from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley, and has taught at Harvard and at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author of Iceberg Risk: An Adventure in Portfolio Theory.