"In Liquid Assets, author Diane Galusha traces for the first time between the covers of a single volume the development of the amazing water system that altered landscapes, transformed lives, and made possible New York's preeminence among the world's great cities."--Back cover.
Now more than ever, the value of Investment-Grade Wines (IGWs) and opportunities to invest in wine as an asset class are soaring. With a little research and a little risk, wine enthusiasts on every level will find it possible to gain big rewards in wine investment -- and there's never been a better time to try. IGWs have dependably outperformed blue chip stocks over the past 150 years, and the upscale wine market is still an area in which independent investors can profit handsomely. A third-generation wine merchant, and CEO of one of the largest rare-wine companies in the world, David Sokolin knows how to turn fine wine into cold cash. And he knows how you can, too. In simple, practical terms, Investing in Liquid Assets provides all the information you need to understand the economic principles that govern the world of fine wine and take advantage of the resources currently available. Using his insider's expertise, Sokolin defines Investment-Grade Wine and identifies the most financially important wine regions and styles. Defining the key players in the field, Sokolin shows you how to navigate the world of wine critics and understand the impact of their scores, and he explains why it's perfectly fine that your own personal tastes really don't matter. He offers tips on where to find reputable sources for fine wine, how to manage storage and resale, as well as all-important buying and selling strategies. In the second half of the book, he gives overviews of the world's greatest wine regions and offers his predictions about which regions and which wines are likely to represent the greatest investment opportunities in the near future. Providing information and tactics previously known only to successful professionals, Investing in Liquid Assets turns your passion for fine wine into a valuable resource that will pay for itself.
In this volume, Smith traces the development of Britain's suprisingly rich stock of lidos, starting with their muddy beginnings in London's parks, through their fashionable heyday in the Thirties, to their battle for survival today.
Liquid Assets shows that the common view of water as an inevitable cause of future wars is neither rational nor necessary. Typically, two or more parties with claim to the same water sources are thought to play a zero-sum game with each side placing a high emotional and political value over the ownership of the water. However, Franklin Fisher and his coauthors demonstrate that when disputes in ownership are expressed as disputes about money values, in most cases, the benefits of ownership will be surprisingly small. By assigning an economic value to water and treating water as a tradable resource, parties see that the gains from cooperation exceed the costs resulting from the change in ownership. A zero-sum game becomes a win-win situation. To support this new approach, Liquid Assets presents an innovative water allocation model that can be used to assist water management, the cost-benefit analysis of water infrastructure, and the resolution of disputes. The model takes system-wide effects into account and is the first to overcome the failure of actual water markets to cope with the divergence between social and private benefits (as implied by agricultural subsidies), permitting the model-user to impose his or her own values or policies. Liquid Assets applies its methodology to Israel, Jordan, and Palestine, a region where water is scarce and water conflicts are often thought to be explosive. Indeed, this book is the result of a joint effort of Israeli, Jordanian, Palestinian, American, and Dutch experts. But the book‘s message and methods are not restricted to the Middle East. They are applicable to water management and water disputes around the globe.
Most writings linking demographic trends to water availability often look only at population-growth effects, treating water supplies as static and population as increasing, inexorably leading to a water-availability crisis. This report's more holistic view of the interaction between demographics and water resources considers more demographic and local water-availability variables. It focuses on conditions in developing countries, where these factors intersect with the fewest socioeconomic resources to mediate.
A new edition of a book presenting a unified framework for studying the role of money and liquid assets in the economy, revised and updated. In Money, Payments, and Liquidity, Guillaume Rocheteau and Ed Nosal provide a comprehensive investigation into the economics of money, liquidity, and payments by explicitly modeling the mechanics of trade and its various frictions (including search, private information, and limited commitment). Adopting the last generation of the New Monetarist framework developed by Ricardo Lagos and Randall Wright, among others, Nosal and Rocheteau provide a dynamic general equilibrium framework to examine the frictions in the economy that make money and liquid assets play a useful role in trade. They discuss such topics as cashless economies; the properties of an asset that make it suitable to be used as a medium of exchange; the optimal monetary policy and the cost of inflation; the coexistence of money and credit; and the relationships among liquidity, asset prices, monetary policy; and the different measures of liquidity in over-the-counter markets. The second edition has been revised to reflect recent progress in the New Monetarist approach to payments and liquidity. Rocheteau and Nosal have added three new chapters: on unemployment and payments, on asset price dynamics and bubbles, and on crashes and recoveries in over-the-counter markets. The chapter on the role of money has been entirely rewritten, adopting a mechanism design approach. Other chapters have been revised and updated, with new material on credit economies under limited commitment, open-market operations and liquidity traps, and the limited pledgeability of assets under informational frictions.
Two leading economists develop a theory explaining the demand for and supply of liquid assets. Why do financial institutions, industrial companies, and households hold low-yielding money balances, Treasury bills, and other liquid assets? When and to what extent can the state and international financial markets make up for a shortage of liquid assets, allowing agents to save and share risk more effectively? These questions are at the center of all financial crises, including the current global one. In Inside and Outside Liquidity, leading economists Bengt Holmström and Jean Tirole offer an original, unified perspective on these questions. In a slight, but important, departure from the standard theory of finance, they show how imperfect pledgeability of corporate income leads to a demand for as well as a shortage of liquidity with interesting implications for the pricing of assets, investment decisions, and liquidity management. The government has an active role to play in improving risk-sharing between consumers with limited commitment power and firms dealing with the high costs of potential liquidity shortages. In this perspective, private risk-sharing is always imperfect and may lead to financial crises that can be alleviated through government interventions.
A Tea Reader contains a selection of stories that cover the spectrum of life. This anthology shares the ways that tea has changed lives through personal, intimate stories. Read of deep family moments, conquered heartbreak, and peace found in the face of loss. A Tea Reader includes stories from all types of tea people: people brought up in the tea tradition, those newly discovering it, classic writings from long-ago tea lovers and those making tea a career. Together these tales create a new image of a tea drinker. They show that tea is not simply something you drink, but it also provides quiet moments for making important decisions, a catalyst for conversation, and the energy we sometimes need to operate in our lives. The stories found in A Tea Reader cover the spectrum of life, such as the development of new friendships, beginning new careers, taking dream journeys, and essentially sharing the deep moments of life with friends and families. Whether you are a tea lover or not, here you will discover stories that speak to you and inspire you. Sit down, grab a cup, and read on.
Financial Soundness Indicators (FSIs) are measures that indicate the current financial health and soundness of a country's financial institutions, and their corporate and household counterparts. FSIs include both aggregated individual institution data and indicators that are representative of the markets in which the financial institutions operate. FSIs are calculated and disseminated for the purpose of supporting macroprudential analysis--the assessment and surveillance of the strengths and vulnerabilities of financial systems--with a view to strengthening financial stability and limiting the likelihood of financial crises. Financial Soundness Indicators: Compilation Guide is intended to give guidance on the concepts, sources, and compilation and dissemination techniques underlying FSIs; to encourage the use and cross-country comparison of these data; and, thereby, to support national and international surveillance of financial systems.
The little-known story of the systems that bring us our drinking water, how they were developed, the problems they are facing, and how they will be reinvented in the near future