This book is intended for all who are committed to human wellbeing and who want to make our world fairer, safer and more fulfilling for everyone, especially those who are ‘last’. It argues that to do better we need to know better. It provides evidence that what we believe we know in international development is often distorted or unbalanced by errors, myths, biases and blind spots. Undue weight has been attached to standardised methodologies such as randomized control trials, systematic reviews, and competitive bidding: these are shown to have huge transaction costs which are rarely if ever recognized in their enormity. Robert Chambers contrasts a Newtonian paradigm in which the world is seen and understood as controllable with a paradigm of complexity which recognizes that the real world of social processes and power relations is messy and unpredictable. To confront the challenges of complex and emergent realities requires a revolutionary new professionalism. This is underpinned by a new combination of canons of rigour expressed through eclectic methodological pluralism and participatory approaches which reverse and transform power relations. Promising developments include rapid innovations in participatory ICTs, participatory statistics, and the Reality Check Approach with its up-to-date and rigorously grounded insights. Fundamental to the new professionalism, in every country and context, are reflexivity, facilitation, groundtruthing, and personal mindsets, behaviour, attitudes, empathy and love. Robert Chambers surveys the past world of international development, and his own past views, with an honest and critical eye, and then launches into the world of complexity with a buoyant enthusiasm. He draws on almost six decades of experience in varied roles in Africa, South Asia and elsewhere as practitioner, trainer, manager, teacher, evaluator and field researcher, also working in UNHCR and the Ford Foundation. He is a Research Associate and Emeritus Professor at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, his base for many years. Can We Know Better? is essential reading for researchers and students of development, for policy makers and evaluators, and for all those working towards the better world of the Sustainable Development Goals.

"This book builds on the insights of Günther Bachmann, former Secretary General for the German Sustainability Council, who spent almost twenty years advising the German Government on sustainability policy. The book discusses his experiences in negotiating stakeholder statements at the highest national levels. Bachmann takes the reader behind the scenes of German sustainable policy and practice, whilst also comparing Germany with other national approaches. He tells the story of political events from his insider perspective, unfolding the narrative of sustainable development goals and how activists in their respective countries could and should relate to it. Furthermore, he suggests new lines of vision through the tangle of conference fatigue and buzzwords. The book argues that environmentalists often display entrenched attitudes that too often downplay success. The rhetoric of crisis and doom, if overstretched and reduced to alarm, paralyses action and innovation. Bachmann, who on the contrary argues positively and concretely, shows unusual but significant signs of hope and confidence in action and how these can be made effective in the politics of sustainable development. This book will be of global relevance to sustainability professionals and policy makers and will advise them on how to successfully move ahead with sustainability policies"--

"The second edition of this successful and widely recognized textbook again focuses on discrete topics. The author recognizes two distinct paths of study and careers of actuarial science and financial engineering. This text can be very useful as a common core for both. Therefore, there is substantial material on the theory of interest (the first half of the book), as well as the probabilistic background necessary for the study of portfolio optimization and derivative valuation (the second half). The material in the first two chapters should go a long way toward helping students prepare for the Financial Mathematics (FM) actuarial exam. Also, the discrete material will reveal how beneficial it is to know more about loans in student's personal financial lives. The notable changes and updates to this edition are itemized in the Preface, however, overall, the presentation has been made more efficient. One example is the chapter on discrete probability, rather unique in its emphasis on giving the deterministic problems studied earlier a probabilistic context. Probably is now a subsection on Markov chains. Sample spaces and probability measures, random variables and distributions, expectation, conditional probability, independence, and estimation all follow. Optimal portfolio selection coverage is reorganized and the section on the practicalities of stock transactions has been revised. Market portfolio, and Capital Market Theory coverage is expanded. This book, like the first edition, was written so that the print edition could stand alone. At times we simplify complicated algebraic expressions, or solve systems of linear equations, or numerically solve non-linear equations. Also, some attention is given to the use of computer simulation to approximate solutions to problems. A course in multivariable calculus is not required. The entire text is available digitally from the publisher in the form of a series of Mathematica notebooks, which can be loaded into Mathematica, and which include complete executable commands and programs, and some additional material"

Available for the first time with Macmillans new online learning platform, Achieve, Krugman and Wells's text is more effective than ever at helping students reach new levels of economic understanding.When it comes to explaining fundamental economic principles by drawing on current economic issues and events, there is no one more effective than Nobel laureate and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and co-author, Robin Wells. In this best-selling introductory textbook, Krugman and Wells' signature storytelling style and uncanny eye for revealing examples help readers understand how economic concepts play out in our world.Along with the addition of Achieve, the new edition is revised and enhanced throughout, including a powerful new online version in Achieve, incisive new looks at long-run growth and at market power, and extensive coverage of the economic impacts and policy responses to the coronavirus pandemic.

"Quantitative Finance with Case Studies in Python: A Practical Guide to Investment Management, Trading and Financial Engineering bridges the gap between the theory of mathematical finance and the practical applications of these concepts for derivative pricing and portfolio management. The book provides students with a very hands-on, rigorous introduction to foundational topics in quant finance, such as options pricing, portfolio optimization and machine learning. Simultaneously, the reader benefits from a strong emphasis on the practical applications of these concepts for institutional investors. This new edition includes brand new material on data science and AI concepts, including large language models, as well as updated content to reflect the transition from Libor to SOFR to bring the text right up to date. It also includes expanded material on inflation and mortgage backed securities, more trade ideas embedded in each chapter and also via a dedicated chapter analyzing a set of derivatives trades. There are addition of examples throughout based on recent market dynamics, including the post-Covid inflation shock and its impact on risk parity strategies. Overall, the new edition is designed to be even more of a practical tool than the first edition, and more firmly rooted in real-world data, applications, and examples"