Credit Risk Modeling : Theory and Applications (Princeton Series in Finance)

Rating:
Summary: Not bad at all...
Review: Contrary to other people, I have found the book very interesting and readable...The author is also referring to practical issues such as asset volatility estimation and CDO pricing..I think this book is more comparable to Bielecki-Rutkowsky kind of book, than to Schonbucher. It gives a good foundation of the theory, even if sometime I would have preferred to have more proofs of theorems.
Compact, readable and fairly complete.


Rating:
Summary: A book for those who think Robert Jarrow is a lightweight!
Review: Robert Jarrow praises this book! I think that tells you the level of this text. It's Ivy League Ph.D.-school material with inadequate background provided. I guess if you are already a director of research in an investment bank, this book provides a lucid and compact survey of the current state-of-the-art techniques of credit risk modeling. In short, this is a book written for people who already are comfortable with the subject at a very high level.

If you are a regular Schmoe like myself (someone comfortable at the Hull or Cuthbertson and Nitzche level) much of this book may zoom over your head. But if you regulary snicker at folks like me as derivatives dilatants and poseurs, I'd say check it out.

The book may be great. But for me it was a waste of money.

Did I mention that Robert Jarrow likes it?

Rating:
Summary: A casual collection of models without sound understanding
Review: The author briefly touched many models without quite understanding them himself (or checking their validity). Most of the text were collected (and rewritten) from reading the abstract or conclusion of the original papers. There is not enough insight or new info. It is absolutely not a book for someone who wants to learn because it is like a undergraduate's study report. If a book reviews many models, it should provide some insights, pros and cons of them, and at least some framework for other researchers to follow. It loses value if it merely rephrases some obvious and straghtforward assumptions of the original models.

I admire the author and the editor (Duffie) as researchers. However, the author is not ready yet to write a book of this kind and the editor has been a super star in finance, hence should not lower himself to this level for the sake of publication. This book does not provide useful info at all. Not good for a researcher or a practitioner (at all). Why not read the original papers' abstracts? That would be more informative.