International Financial Management, 7th Edition

Book Preface

Our Reason for Writing this Textbook

Both of us have been teaching international financial management to undergraduates and M.B.A. students at Georgia Institute of Technology, Wake Forest University, and at other universities we have visited for three decades. During this time period, we conducted many research studies, published in major finance and statistics journals, concerning the operation of international financial markets. As one might imagine, in doing this we put together an extensive set of teaching materials that we used successfully in the classroom. As the years went by, we individually relied more on our own teaching materials and notes and less on any one of the major existing textbooks in international finance (most of which we tried at some point).

As you may be aware, the scope and content of international finance have been fast evolving due to deregulation of financial markets, product innovations, and technological advancements.

As capital markets of the world are becoming more integrated, a solid understanding of international finance has become essential for astute corporate decision making. Reflecting the growing importance of international finance as a discipline, we have seen a sharp increase in the demand for experts in the area in both the corporate and academic worlds.

In writing I nternational Financial Management, Seventh Edition, our goal was to provide well-organized, comprehensive, and up-to-date coverage of the topics that take advantage of our many years of teaching and research in this area. We hope the text is challenging to students. This does not mean that it lacks readability. The text discussion is written so that a self-contained treatment of each subject is presented in a user-friendly fashion. The text is intended for use at both the advanced undergraduate and M.B.A. levels.

The Underlying Philosophy

International Financial Management, Seventh Edition, like the first six editions, is written based on two tenets: emphasis on the basics and emphasis on a managerial perspective.

We believe that any subject is better learned if one first is well grounded in the basics. Consequently, we initially devote several chapters to the fundamental concepts of international finance. After these are learned, the remaining material flows easily from them. We always bring the reader back, as the more advanced topics are developed, to their relationship to the fundamentals. By doing this, we believe students will be left with a framework for analysis that will serve them well when they need to apply this material in their careers in the years ahead.

We believe this approach has produced a successfuI textbook: International Financial Management is used in many of the best business schools in the world. Various editions of the text have been translated into Spanish and two dialects of Chinese. There is a global edition. In addition, local co-authors have assisted in preparing a Canadian, Malaysian, and Indian adaptations.

Seventh Edition Organization

International Financial Management, Seventh Edition, has been completely updated. All data tables and statistics are the most current available when the text went to press.

Additionally, the chapters incorporate several new International Finance in Practice boxes that contain real-world illustrations of chapter topics and concepts. In the margins below, we highlight specific changes in the Seventh edition.