Theoretical Foundations of Corporate Finance.

Rating:
Summary: Good idea, badly cooked
Review: Mr. Amaro de Matos had a good idea in his hands when he wanted to write a graduate textbook of corporate finance. Unfortunately he managed to write a mediocre book that will neither satisfy Ph.D. students, MBAs (they have several highly superior books aimed at them) nor practitioners (nothing is as far away from practice as this).

The book is written as a summary of seminal papers in the field. Most of them are from the 1970s, so you will miss most of the recent developments, not to mention the frontier (what a book of this type should aim for). The style is annoying giving excessive formalism when it is not needed and stating highly debated ideas as fact, with no logic or argument whatsoever, out of the blue. The writing is also second rate, with a careless use of English.

The book gets two stars just for giving a reading list where one can find the real stuff and giving an OK introduction to the topic for Ph.D.'s in other areas of economics without time to read the papers. Unluckily the author's non-economic background nor real practice outside academia play against him for what could have been an otherwise good book.