E PHILIP DAVIS AND BENN STEIL

Undoubtedly one of the most important developments in financial markets in recent years has been the institutionalisation of saving associated with the growth of pension funds, life insurance companies and mutual funds. This has entailed an increasing proportion of household saving being managed by professional portfolio managers instead of being directly invested in the securities markets, on the one hand, or held in the form of bank deposits, on the other. This book aims to provide a comprehensive economic assessment of the growth of institutional investment, their performance, the industry of asset management and the implications of institutionalisation for the financial sector, the wider economy and securities markets. As recorded by the comments from experts below, this book is without parallel both in respect of its subject matter and its international coverage. There is simply no other text available that sets the institutional investor sector in the major industrial countries as its core.The book should serve as an essential text for Masters/MBA courses, for interested academics and for market participants.

This book fills an important gap in the market. With its extensive international coverage and institutional detail, it should become the standard work on the structure of the asset management industry. Richard Brealey, Professor of Finance, London Business School, and of co-author of Brealey and Myers Principles of Corporate Finance and Brealey, Myers and Marcus Fundamentals of Corporate Finance

I think it is an important book which will have a ready and immediate market. Indeed there is little else available that is so comprehensive and so to the point about the institutional investment industry. It is bound to be a benchmark book for some years to come. Consequently when we look at possible competitors we find very little else that comes close to this approach and certainly very little that has the detailed data and empirical perspective that sustains the book — Gordon Clark, Professor of Geography, Oxford University and author of Pension Fund Capitalism, OUP, 2000

The book is excellent. It makes a much needed contribution to the literature. It is very comprehensive and I think it will sell very well. — David Blake, Professor of Finance, Birkbeck College London, author Financial Market Analysis, and Pension funds and pension schemes in the United Kingdom, OUP

The work will be a significant contribution in that there is little accessible material on this specific subject. It will be useful for post-graduate courses on Investment Management (possibly also on Finance) and MBAs. It will also be useful for academics and practitioners. Three books which I use in this field are Bodie, Kane and Marcus, Investment; Blake, Financial Market Analysis; and Elton and Gruber, Modern Portfolio Theory. All of these books major on investment theory and instruments and tend to treat institutional investors as an afterthought. This book majors on institutional investors and thus fills a gap in the market. — Philip Booth, Professor of Property Finance, City University, London