"Fractals and Scaling In Finance: Discontinuity, Concentration, Risk" by Benoit B. Mandelbrot
SELECTA Volume E.
Springer | 1997 Reprint December 2010 | ISBN: 1441931198 9781441931191 0387983635 9780387983639 | 566 pages | PDF/djvu | 8 MB
This is a most useful collection of Mandelbrot's work economics, it provides an excellent starting point for anybody interested in the origin of many current topics in empirical finance or the distribution of income. Mandelbrot writes with economy and felicity, and he intersperses the more mathematical sections with frank historical anecdotes, such as the events that led up to his work on cotton pricing and the embarrassment caused by interpreting US Department of Agriculture data for weekly averages as 'Sunday closing prices.' There are many fascinating asides on a variety of topics, ranging from the importance of computer graphics in science to the distribution of insurance claims resulting from fire damage.