Emphasizing the statistical aspects of the field, Stabile (economics, St. Mary’s College) presents a tour of the economic approaches to finance in the first half of the 20th century. After a
brief survey of the history of statistics (particularly Bayesian), he offers chapters on Irving Fisher and statistical measures of risk; Thorstein Veblen’s theories of credit risk and
behavioral finance; the views of Frank Knight, Edgar Lawrence, Irving Fisher, and others on diversification and risk during the boom and bust of the 1920s; Alfred Cowles’ stock price
forecasting and technical analysis; the downplaying of statistical methods by John Maynard Keynes, John Burr Williams; Benjamin Graham, and David Dodd; the state of investment analysis in the
1980s; and the relationship between these forerunners and the innovators of modern financial economics. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
