Whether you're building the next killer app, investing in a startup, or simply curious about the technology, this practical book is essential reading.Bitcoin, the first successful decentralized digital currency, is still in its infancy and it's already spawned a multi-billion dollar global economy. This economy is open to anyone with the knowledge and passion to participate. Mastering Bitcoin provides you with the knowledge you need (passion not included).This book includes:A broad introduction to bitcoin--ideal for non-technical users, investors, and business executivesAn explanation of the technical foundations of bitcoin and cryptographic currencies for developers, engineers, and software and systems architectsDetails of the bitcoin decentralized network, peer-to-peer architecture, transaction lifecycle, and security principlesOffshoots of the bitcoin and blockchain inventions, including alternative chains, currencies, and applicationsUser stories, analogies, examples, and code snippets illustrating key technical concepts

    It is however a healthy and invigorating blast, without malice and with a sincere regard for scientific objectivity."—K.E. Boulding, Political Science Quarterly"Certainly one of the most engrossing volumes that has appeared recently in economic theory."—William J. Baumol, Review of Economics and Statistics

    But it is much more than that, too. It is a public ledger to which everyone has access, but which no single person controls. It allows for companies and individuals to collaborate with an unprecedented degree of trust and transparency. It is cryptographically secure, but fundamentally open. And soon it will be everywhere.In Blockchain Revolution, Don and Alex Tapscott reveal how this game-changing technology will shape the future of the world economy, dramatically improving everything from healthcare records to online voting, and from insurance claims to artist royalty payments. Brilliantly researched and highly accessible, this is the essential text on the next major paradigm shift. Read it, or be left behind.

    This title is aimed at courses in applied econometrics, political methodology, and sociological methods or a one-year graduate course in econometrics for social scientists.

    Rather than a "how to" for hands-on techies, the book entices lay-readers and experts alike by covering new case studies and the latest state-of-the-art techniques.You have been predicted — by companies, governments, law enforcement, hospitals, and universities. Their computers say, "I knew you were going to do that!" These institutions are seizing upon the power to predict whether you're going to click, buy, lie, or die.Why? For good reason: predicting human behavior combats financial risk, fortifies healthcare, conquers spam, toughens crime fighting, and boosts sales.How? Prediction is powered by the world's most potent, booming unnatural resource: data. Accumulated in large part as the by-product of routine tasks, data is the unsalted, flavorless residue deposited en masse as organizations churn away. Surprise! This heap of refuse is a gold mine. Big data embodies an extraordinary wealth of experience from which to learn.Predictive analytics unleashes the power of data. With this technology, the computer literally learns from data how to predict the future behavior of individuals. Perfect prediction is not possible, but putting odds on the future — lifting a bit of the fog off our hazy view of tomorrow — means pay dirt.In this rich, entertaining primer, former Columbia University professor and Predictive Analytics World founder Eric Siegel reveals the power and perils of prediction: -What type of mortgage risk Chase Bank predicted before the recession. -Predicting which people will drop out of school, cancel a subscription, or get divorced before they are even aware of it themselves. -Why early retirement decreases life expectancy and vegetarians miss fewer flights. -Five reasons why organizations predict death, including one health insurance company. -How U.S. Bank, European wireless carrier Telenor, and Obama's 2012 campaign calculated the way to most strongly influence each individual. -How IBM's Watson computer used predictive modeling to answer questions and beat the human champs on TV's Jeopardy! -How companies ascertain untold, private truths — how Target figures out you're pregnant and Hewlett-Packard deduces you're about to quit your job. -How judges and parole boards rely on crime-predicting computers to decide who stays in prison and who goes free. -What's predicted by the BBC, Citibank, ConEd, Facebook, Ford, Google, IBM, the IRS, Match.com, MTV, Netflix, Pandora, PayPal, Pfizer, and Wikipedia. A truly omnipresent science, predictive analytics affects everyone, every day. Although largely unseen, it drives millions of decisions, determining whom to call, mail, investigate, incarcerate, set up on a date, or medicate.Predictive analytics transcends human perception. This book's final chapter answers the riddle: What often happens to you that cannot be witnessed, and that you can't even be sure has happened afterward — but that can be predicted in advance?Whether you are a consumer of it — or consumed by it — get a handle on the power of Predictive Analytics.

    This comprehensive survey of microfinance seeks to bridge the gap in the existing literature on microfinance between academic economists and practitioners. Both authors have pursued the subject not only in academia but in the field; Beatriz Armendariz de Aghion founded a microfinance bank in Chiapas, Mexico, and Jonathan Morduch has done fieldwork in Bangladesh, China, and Indonesia. The authors move beyond the usual theoretical focus in the microfinance literature and draw on new developments in theories of contracts and incentives. They challenge conventional assumptions about how poor households save and build assets and how institutions can overcome market failures. The book provides an overview of microfinance by addressing a range of issues, including lessons from informal markets, savings and insurance, the role of women, the place of subsidies, impact measurement, and management incentives. and Latin America and introducing ideas about asymmetric information, principal-agent theory, and household decision making in the context of microfinance. The Economics of Microfinance can be used by students in economics, public policy, and development studies. Mathematical notation is used to clarify some arguments, but the main points can be grasped without the math. Each chapter ends with analytically challenging exercises for advanced economics students.

    Macroeconomics1. Maximizing UtilityDecreasing Marginal Utility | Opportunity Costs2. Evaluating Production PossibilitiesProduction Possibilities Frontiers | Absolute and Comparative Advantage3. DemandDeterminants of Demand | Elasticity of Demand | Change in Demand vs. Change in Quantity Demanded4. SupplyDeterminants of Supply | Elasticity of Supply | Change in Supply vs. Change in Quantity Supplied5. Market EquilibriumHow Market Equilibrium is Reached | The Effect of Changes in Supply and Demand6. Government InterventionPrice Ceilings and Price Floors | Taxes and Subsidies7. Costs of ProductionMarginal Cost of Production | Fixed vs. Variable Costs | Short Run vs. Long Run | Sunk Costs | Economic Costs vs. Accounting Costs8. Perfect CompetitionFirms Are Price Takers | Making Decisions at the Margin | Consumer and Producer Surplus9. MonopolyMarket Power | Deadweight Loss with a Monopoly | Monopolies and Government10. OligopolyCollusion | Cheating the Cartel | Government Intervention in Oligopolies11. Monopolistic CompetitionCompeting via Product Differentiation | Loss of Surplus with Monopolistic CompetitionConclusion: The Insights and Limitations of Economics

    Conservatively, Rs. 15 lakh crore (10 per cent of Rs. 150 lakh crore, our GDP in 2016-17). As for Indian money in tax havens around the world? Around Rs. 65 lakh crores. Truly astounding figures. Black money or kala dhan is a topic that has elicited much debate in recent times. The debate has been mostly marked by mud-slinging and name-calling and the discussions that have ensued often have no basis in fact. While most people have a hazy notion of black money, only a few understand it in its entirety. The issue of tax havens is perhaps even more misunderstood. Most people fail to see the connection between tax havens and black money. Black Money and Tax Havens is the first work that discusses both of these issues in depth and offers a 360-degree view to the reader. In this work, Prof. R. Vaidyanathan provides the reader with a brief overview of black money—its generation, its estimates and how and why it is spirited away to tax havens. He also lays bare the danger that is posed to world financial well-being on account of the lack of political will to tackle them. A unique and timely work that packs in much information in an accessible manner.

    What makes Bitcoin so special? What sets Bitcoin apart from every other monetary asset that preceded it? What is a monetary asset in the first place? What is money? What is inflation? Who benefits from it? What is scarcity? Is Bitcoin's mining process wasteful? Is Bitcoin a religion or a rejection of religious beliefs? All of this and more, inside.

    Money Wise shows you the way. It cuts through the clutter of jargon and technical terms, leading you step by step on how to grow wealthy. In it, you will learn: Ways of allocating your income The only mutual funds hack worth knowing Why you should be watching not what Warren Buffett says but what he does Written in Shenoy’s trademark style, Money Wise is a book as much fun to read as it is informative. If you want to start investing, this is the book for you. If you have already started, then read this and up your game.

    Dent Jr., bestselling author of The Demographic Cliff and The Sale of a Lifetime, predicted the populist wave that has driven the Brexit vote, the election of Donald Trump, and other recent shocks around the world. Now he returns with the definitive guide to protect your investments and prosper in the age of the anti-globalist backlash.The turn of the 2020s will mark an extremely rare convergence of low points for multiple political, economic, and demographic cycles. The result will be a major financial crash and global upheaval that will dwarf the Great Recession of the 2000s—and maybe even the Great Depression of the 1930s. We’re facing the onset of what Dent calls “Economic Winter.”   In Zero Hour, he and Andrew Pancholi (author of The Market Timing Report newsletter) explain all of these cycles, which influence everything from currency valuations to election returns, from economic growth rates in Asia to birthrates in Europe. You’ll learn, for instance:   • Why the most-hyped technologies of recent years (self-driving cars, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, blockchain) won’t pay off until the 2030s.    • Why China may be the biggest bubble in the global economy (and you’d be a fool to invest there).    • Why you should invest in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries, and pull out of real estate and automotive.    • Why putting your faith in gold is a bad idea.   Fortunately, Zero Hour includes a range of practical strategies to help you turn the upheaval ahead to your advantage, so your family can be prepared and protected.

    In the modern experimentalist paradigm, these techniques address clear causal questions such as: Do smaller classes increase learning? Should wife batterers be arrested? How much does education raise wages? Mostly Harmless Econometrics shows how the basic tools of applied econometrics allow the data to speak.In addition to econometric essentials, Mostly Harmless Econometrics covers important new extensions--regression-discontinuity designs and quantile regression--as well as how to get standard errors right. Joshua Angrist and Jorn-Steffen Pischke explain why fancier econometric techniques are typically unnecessary and even dangerous. The applied econometric methods emphasized in this book are easy to use and relevant for many areas of contemporary social science.An irreverent review of econometric essentials A focus on tools that applied researchers use most Chapters on regression-discontinuity designs, quantile regression, and standard errors Many empirical examples A clear and concise resource with wide applications

    But satisfactory answers have been hard to find for lack of adequate data and clear guiding theories. In Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty analyzes a unique collection of data from twenty countries, ranging as far back as the eighteenth century, to uncover key economic and social patterns. His findings will transform debate and set the agenda for the next generation of thought about wealth and inequality.Piketty shows that modern economic growth and the diffusion of knowledge have allowed us to avoid inequalities on the apocalyptic scale predicted by Karl Marx. But we have not modified the deep structures of capital and inequality as much as we thought in the optimistic decades following World War II. The main driver of inequality—the tendency of returns on capital to exceed the rate of economic growth—today threatens to generate extreme inequalities that stir discontent and undermine democratic values. But economic trends are not acts of God. Political action has curbed dangerous inequalities in the past, Piketty says, and may do so again.

    

    Get this Amazing #1 Amazon Top Release - Great Deal! You can read on your PC, Mac, smartphone, tablet or Kindle device. Bitcoin is not just a new word in the Internet age or technological and financial progress, it's a start of a new era on the Earth! Even 10 years ago we even couldn't imagine dreaming about digital money - you can't physically touch them but you can own and spend them. Today this is a reality! Bitcoin revolution covered the whole world like a huge wave, more and more people interested in this "Digital Gold". Over the past few years, Bitcoin has grown from something known only to a select few tech nerds into a revolutionary currency that has rapidly changed the way that we think about the concept of money. You no doubt see Bitcoin payments accepted in all kinds of places now, but, if you can believe it, it used to be a fairly complicated procedure for finding places that let you pay in Bitcoin. Anyway, to run the world you need to know everything. We can't guarantee that you will know EVERYTHING from this book, but we can guarantee you will have the notion of a new currency - Bitcoin. What is it? Where did it come from? How do you use it? Is it really just fake internet money created by drug dealers? That is precisely what we will be answering in this book. We’ll cover everything you need to know in order to get started with Bitcoin: understanding the Blockchain and Bitcoin transactions where to keep your Bitcoin (how to choose a secure wallet) buying Bitcoin investing in Bitcoin how to start accepting and using Bitcoin as a part of your business principles of Bitcoin mining the security of Bitcoin etc. Also, the author will share with you interesting facts about Bitcoin and will give you professional tips on the start of your way in Bitcoin family! Ready to take on the Bitcoin world yet? I hope so. I’d like to be the first to officially welcome you to the world of Bitcoin!