As did the national bestseller Nickel and Dimed, Mike Rose’s revelatory book demolishes the long-held notion that people who work with their hands make up a less intelligent class. He shows us waitresses making lightning-fast calculations, carpenters handling complex spatial mathematics, and hairdressers, plumbers, and electricians with their aesthetic and diagnostic acumen. Rose, an educator who is himself the son of a waitress, explores the intellectual repertory of everyday workers and the terrible social cost of undervaluing the work they do. Deftly combining research, interviews, and personal history, this is one of those rare books that has the capacity both to shape public policy and to illuminate general readers.

Capitalize on All the Latest Legal, Financial, and Compliance Information Needed to Analyze and Appraise Any Business

For over 25 years, Valuing a Business has provided professionals and students with expert business valuation information, offering clear, concise coverage of valuation principles and methods. Over the decades, the book's unsurpassed explanations of all valuation issues have made it the definitive text in the field, against which every other business valuation book is measured.

Now updated with new legal, financial, and compliance material, the Fifth Edition of Valuing a Business presents detailed answers to virtually all valuation questions_ranging from executive compensation and lost profits analysis…to ESOP issues and valuation discounts.

Written by Shannon Pratt, one of the world's leading authorities on business valuation, this updated classic offers a complete “one-stop” compendium of information on the full range of valuation concepts and methods. Valuing a Business contains step-by-step discussions and analyses of:

• Business Valuation Standards and Credentials
• Defining the Assignment
• Business Valuation Theory and Principles
• Gathering Company Data
• Site Visits and Interviews
• Researching Economic and Industry Information
• Analyzing Financial Statements
• Financial Statement Ratio Analysis
• Income, Market, and Asset-Based Approaches to Valuation
• The Capitalized Excess Earnings Method
• Premiums and Discounts
• Writing and Reviewing Business Valuation Reports
• Valuing Debt Securities, Preferred Stock, Stock Options, and S Corporation Stock
• Valuations for Estate and Gift Tax Purposes
• Buy-Sell Agreements
• Valuations for Income Tax Purposes
• Valuation with Employee Stock Ownership Plans
• Valuations for Ad Valorem Taxation
• Dissenting Stockholder and Minority Oppression Actions
• Valuations for Marital Dissolution Purposes
• Litigation Support Services
• Expert Testimony
• Arbitration and Mediation

This landmark reference also presents a wealth of recent court cases for each valuation area, which together provide a comprehensive overview of all the legal rulings and trends in the field of business valuation.

Nancy Folbre challenges the conventional economist's assumption that parents have children for the same reason that they acquire pets--primarily for the pleasure of their company. Children become the workers and taxpayers of the next generation, and "investments" in them offer a significant payback to other participants in the economy.

Yet parents, especially mothers, pay most of the costs. The high price of childrearing pushes many families into poverty, often with adverse consequences for children themselves.

Parents spend time as well as money on children. Yet most estimates of the "cost" of children ignore the value of this time. Folbre provides a startlingly high but entirely credible estimate of the value of parental time per child by asking what it would cost to purchase a comparable substitute for it.

She also emphasizes the need for better accounting of public expenditure on children over the life cycle and describes the need to rethink the very structure and logic of the welfare state. A new institutional structure could promote more cooperative, sustainable, and efficient commitments to the next generation.

The Definitive Guide to Valuing Hard-to-Value Companies: Now Fully Revised for Today’s Financial Markets

Financial professionals have long faced the challenge of accurately valuing companies that are difficult to value using conventional methodologies. Years ago, this challenge was most keenly felt in the “dot-com” industries, and many professionals fell victim to the “dark side,” creating values that were simply unsustainable. Now, amidst today’s global financial crisis, the same challenge applies to a far wider spectrum of enterprises and assets, ranging from Asian equities to mortgage-backed securities and financial services firms. Aswath Damodaran has thoroughly revised this book, broadening its perspective to consider all companies that resist easy valuation. He covers the entire corporate lifecycle, from “idea” and “nascent growth” companies to those in decline and distress, and offers specific guidance for valuing technology, human capital, commodity, and cyclical firms. Damodaran places special emphasis on the financial sector, illuminating the implications of today’s radically changed credit markets for valuation. Along the way, he addresses valuation questions that have suddenly gained urgency, ranging from “Are U.S. treasuries risk free?” to “How do you value assets in highly illiquid markets?”

• Vanquishing the “dark side”
  Overcoming the temptation to use unrealistic or simplistic valuation methods
• Revisiting the macro inputs that go into valuation
  What you must know about risk-free rates, risk premiums, and other macroeconomic assumptions
• Valuing idea and nascent companies: the first stages of entrepreneurial valuation
  Intelligent analysis for angel and early venture capital investing
• Special challenges associated with valuing financial services firms
  Includes new insights into projecting the impact of regulatory changes
• Best practices and proven solutions from the world’s #1 expert in valuation, Aswath Damodaran
• Now covers all industries and all stages of the corporate lifecycle
• Includes extensive new coverage of valuing financial services and commodities companies

What’s that company or asset really worth? The question is more urgent than ever: We’ve all discovered the havoc that can be caused by misvaluing assets and companies. But some assets are extremely difficult to price with traditional methods. To accurately value them, start with the techniques and best practices in this book.

Renowned valuation expert Aswath Damodaran reviews the core tools of valuation, examines today’s most difficult estimation questions and issues, and then systematically addresses the valuation challenges that arise throughout a firm’s lifecycle. Next, he turns to specific types of hard-to-value firms, including commodity firms, cyclical companies, financial services firms, organizations dependent on intangible assets, and global firms operating diverse businesses.

Damodaran’s insights will be indispensable to everyone involved in valuation: financial professionals, investors, M&A specialists, and entrepreneurs alike.

Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage reframes the family-rights debate by arguing that marriage shouldn't bestow special legal privileges upon couples because people, both heterosexual and LGBT, live in a variety of relationships-including unmarried couples of any sexual orientation, single-parent households, extended biological family units, and myriad other familial configurations. Nancy D. Polikoff shows how the law can value all families, and why it must.

The entrepreneur's step-bystep guide to venture capital--where to find it, how to secure it, and what to do with it

Fewer than 40 percent of entrepreneurs seeking new business funding each year actually get that funding. How to Raise Capital improves those odds, providing prospective as well as current business owners with the knowledge they need to prepare an effective loan proposal, locate a suitable investor, negotiate and close the deal, and more. The all-star team of entrepreneurial experts behind How to Raise Capital gives readers top-level educational theory with hands-on, real-world knowledge. This thorough examination of the inner workings of the venture capital industry explores:

• Resources available to entrepreneurs, from SBA loans to angel investors
• Proven strategies for identifying and approaching equity sources
• Characteristics of a "superdeal"--from the investor's perspective

Valuing the Earth collects more than twenty classic and recent essays that broaden economic thinking by setting the economy in its proper ecological and ethical context. They vividly demonstrate that, contrary to current macroeconomic preoccupations, continued growth on a planet of finite resources cannot be physically or economically sustained and is morally undesirable.Among the issues addressed are population growth, resource use, pollution, theology (east and west), energy, and economic growth. Their common theme is the notion, popular with classical economists from Malthus to Mill, that an economic stationary state is more healthful to life on earth than unlimited growth. A number of essays in the first edition have become classics and have been retained for this edition, which adds six new essays.Herman E. Daly is Senior Economist at the World Bank. Kenneth N. Townsend is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Economics at Hampden-Sydney College.Contributors: Kenneth E. Boulding. John Cobb. Herman E. Daly. Anne H. Ehrlich. Paul R. Ehrlich. Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen. Garrett Hardin. John P. Holdren. M. King Hubbert. C. S. Lewis. E. F. Schumacher. Gerald Alonzo Smith. T. H. Tietenberg. Kenneth N. Townsend.

"Mun demystifies real options analysis and delivers a powerful, pragmatic guide for decision-makers and practitioners alike. Finally, there is a book that equips professionals to easily recognize, value, and seize real options in the world around them."
--Jim Schreckengast, Senior VP, R&D Strategy, Gemplus International SA, France

Completely revised and updated to meet the challenges of today's dynamic business environment, Real Options Analysis, Second Edition offers you a fresh look at evaluating capital investment strategies by taking the strategic decision-making process into consideration. This comprehensive guide provides both a qualitative and quantitative description of real options; the methods used in solving real options; why and when they are used; and the applicability of these methods in decision making.

In this landmark work of economic sociology, Lucien Karpik introduces the theory and practical tools needed to analyze markets for singularities. Singularities are goods and services that cannot be studied by standard methods because they are multidimensional, incommensurable, and of uncertain quality. Examples include movies, novels, music, artwork, fine wine, lawyers, and doctors. Valuing the Unique provides a theoretical framework to explain this important class of products and markets that for so long have eluded neoclassical economics.

With this innovative theory--called the economics of singularities--Karpik shows that, because of the uncertainty and the highly subjective valuation of singularities, these markets are necessarily equipped with what he calls "judgment devices"--such as labels, brands, guides, critics, and rankings--which provide consumers with the credible knowledge needed to make reasonable choices. He explains why these markets are characterized by the primacy of competition by qualities over competition by prices, and he identifies the conditions under which singularities are constructed or are in danger of losing their uniqueness.

After demonstrating how combinations of the numerous and multiform judgment devices can be used to identify different market models, Karpik applies his analytical tools to the functioning of a large number of actual markets, including fine wines, movies, luxury goods, pop music, and legal services.

When partnerships change hands, the valuation of intangible assets can be a financial maze. This in-depth book, working through each of the basic valuation approaches: cost, market, and income, provides professionals with complete guidelines and industry standards. It's a must-have for financial analysts and attorneys!