Servitization

Wikipedia asserts that products today have a higher service component than in previous decades. Management literature refers to this phenomenon as "servitization of products", destroying the "old dichotomy" of product and service and instead creating a product-service continuum.
Financial technology companies, as as indirect example IBM, might thus be inclined to positon themselves as service companies, building products, surely, but treating the physical goods as a small part of the "business solutions" industry. (on an academic side note, the notion of servitization was first introduced by Vandermerwe and Rada in the late 1980s).

Software for Transfer Pricing

Corptax transfer pricing architect is a software for transfer pricing. What is transfer pricing and why is it important? It relates to the pricing of assets, services etc. within an organization. As prices are set within an organization, typical market mechanisms may not apply. It's an issue as the price levels set affect the allocation of total profit among parts of the company. This is a major concern for fiscal authorities to prevent degradation of tax revenues due to manipulation of transfer prices. There is an economic theory that underlies transfer pricing.

GEMPACK for computer modeling of General Economic Models

Melbourne's Monash University's GEMPACK allows you to simulate general equilibrium models on your computer. These models will all be variants based on General Equilibrium theory, a branch of neo-classical economics, that explains prices when an economy is in equilibrium (everyone is happy, no-one wants to trade and supply is equal to demand). A good book on modeling the economy as a multi-agent system has been written by Paul Samuelson of MIT.

How Barra Estimates Beta

What is Beta and Why is it important? Why do so many softwares have so many different ways of estimating Beta? Which is correct? These are fundamental issues in the design of portfolio management software.

Beta measures exposure to market risk. Moreover, in the CAPM expected returns depend on Beta. Barra estimates Betas using past Betas plus information about fundamentals e.g. volatility of earnings.