The 16 chapters presented here by Barnett (macroeconomics, U. of Kansas, US) and Jawadi (economics, U. of Evry Val d'Essone, France) empirically examine aspects of the global financial crisis and the failures of monetary and financial institutions and present research findings on "alternative" finance, which seeks to reform and improve conventional finance with new types and forms of investment and capital. Specific topics include a new method for indexing monetary aggregates for the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, times series analysis of the Euro Zone bond market and economic growth, the influence of alternative finance on international portfolio choices of firms, the characteristics of mutual finance industries and insurance companies, characteristics of Islamic finance, the emergence of solidarity employee savings in France, the use of psychological background theory for explaining the evolution of energy price dynamics in Europe, and dynamic risk modeling of hedge funds. Distributed in North America by Turpin Distribution. Annotation ©2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)