Ebook Fischer Black and the Revolutionary Idea of Finance Perry Mehrling Aaron Brown Books

Product details Paperback 400 pages Publisher Wiley; 1 edition (December 27, 2011) Language English ISBN-10 1118203569

Fischer Black and the Revolutionary Idea of Finance Perry Mehrling Aaron Brown Books Reviews

• Simply fascinating. As someone considering pursuing a PhD in either finance or economics, I picked up this book hoping it would help me understand how the two fields relate in a more tangible way. I understood their relation in a conceptual, Wikipedia kind of way, but reading this book helped me understand how they actually co-evolved and how implications from one field would be interpreted by those within the other field. For instance, reading dialogue from the letters back and forth between Fischer Black and Milton Friedman helped me understand how the different ideas from these fields, when extended further, could create a battle ground in the eyes of the participants.
  
  I also appreciated and enjoyed the motivation behind the biography To use Fischer Black's life as a vehicle for the understanding of the evolution of modern finance. That's exactly what this book accomplished, and I feel a great sense of illumination from having read it.
  
  One other fascinating takeaway is just how small was the group that initiated the revolution of CAPM in modern finance and all of it's implications. I was surprised by how closely Treynor, Fischer, Sharpe, Miller, Scholes, and others all worked together at various points in their lives. The list of people who gave their names to the various formulas studied in modern finance could all be found at various times at the same conferences, working on the same papers, and talking, debating, and meeting among themselves. Fascinating, indeed.
  
  I recommend Mehrling's other work, too. His course in The Economics of Money and Banking, as well as his book, The New Lombard Street, had similar effects of "opening my eyes." I have walked away in all cases very, very satisfied. Though, of course, there are always more mysteries to unravel. And so the voyage continues. -)
• Revolutions spring from unlikely sources.
  
  Fischer Black was an unlikely revolutionary. He thought like no one else. While teaching, his colleagues attacked problems with formulas and models. Fischer Black did not. He opted to explore them from as many different angles as he could conceive. Once solved, he generated a formula. Solving problems this way, Black found he avoided formula-dictated thinking ruts.
  
  His teaching style was bizarre. He got bored teaching regurgitated knowledge. In his view regular lectures were a waste of time. He developed an engaging teaching style by asking 50 open-ended questions. Combined with his insistence that students learn the language of finance, this interaction gave air to brilliant minds. Black cherry-picked great ideas. His students loved the vibrant seminars.
  
  Fischer Black became famous for what he cared less about the Black-Scholes option model. Options were just a passing interest. He cared more about Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) developed by Jack Traynor. He sought to apply it to economics.
  
  He failed to leave a legacy in traditional economics. Fischer Black had degrees in physics and mathematics but no formal training in economics. In academia, he became recognized as forward-thinking in finance, but out of his depth in economics.
  
  Robert Rubin, then the managing partner of Goldman Sachs, said it best when he sold his partners on the idea of hiring the academic Black.
  
  "We will learn from Fischer," he is quoted by the author as saying, "and he will learn from us."
  
  Fischer was egoless. He took rebuttals in stride. Open to change, he was an unapologetic believer in free markets. His unorthodox style sparked a revolution in the business of finance. His innovative thinking drove finance to the forefront of the science of economics.
  
  Perry Mehrling has written a brilliant biography about a brilliant man.
• I love Perry Mehrling's biographies and biographical sketches of great economists. He's very precise, gives references for follow up, and presents his subjects as admirable though not perfect humans. This book gives a great overview of Black's life works (and some personal details as well). Highly recommended if you enjoy the history of economics.
• Fischer Black was a rare thinker. It can be said that only death kept him from the Nobel Prize. This book is an account of his work and his life. It portrays his character, as biographies do, and also does a good job of tracing the development of his main work and how they fit into the edifice that is modern financial thought.
  
  Highly recommended.
• I enjoyed this book very much. As I work in the finance area, it was nice to see the development of this profession through history and Mr. Black's involvement in it. He reminds me of John Nash in a way - always trying to come up with original ideas and looking where no one is looking. It was also refreshing to see how he always opted for the simplest solution to the problem, resorting for only the basics of math. For me, this means that he really wanted to understand the core of the idea. Sure, you could complicate later by adding more equations and more assumptions, but at first, to understand, it is not necessary. Too bad not too many people understand this.
  
  To conclude, I recommend this book very highly!
• Perry Mehrling is one of the most cogent teachers in the world of finance today. I picked up this book out of my desire to read more of his works and was not disappointed. A must read for anyone interested in the world of quantitative finance.
• Having a finance background made this book very enjoyable. Perry Mehrling did a good job at writing this biography. It has great insight into Fischer Black's life and mind. This is a must read for financial engineers as well as anyone in finance or business.
• Fascinating story, too bad I can't absorb all the great ideas in it! Will re-read it next year and see if I can learn more.