Constantin Zopounidis, Michael Doumpos, and Panos M. Pardalos, editors
Publisher: Springer (2008)
Details: 491 pages, Hardcover
Series: Springer Optimization and Its Applications 18
Price: $139.00
ISBN: 9780387766812
Category: Handbook
Topics: Actuarial Science, Mathematics of Finance
[Reviewed by Ita Cirovic Donev, on 09/29/2008]
Handbook of Financial Engineering is a collection of papers from various areas of the field including Portfolio Management and Trading, Risk Management, Operations Research Methods in Financial Engineering, and Mergers, Acquisitions and Credit Risk Ratings. The papers are in narrative form, discussing the main current issues in the selected areas. Details are omitted; instead, the authors provide detailed references. The level of mathematics is minimal, only included for the sake of discussion and where it is desperately needed for clarity. Discussions are at the introductory level, which should seem very inviting to students and readers who are new to the field and need an overview of the methods currently used.
Due to its simplicity of the presentation the handbook will probably not be too popular with readers who are even somewhat familiar with the specific field as in that case they should already possess the knowledge presented in the handbook.
Ita Cirovic Donev holds a Masters degree in statistics from Rice University. Her main research areas are in mathematical finance; more precisely, statistical methods for credit and market risk. Apart from the academic work she does statistical consulting work for financial institutions in the area of risk management.