Using SAS in Financial Research (Ekkehart Boehmer)

When someone writes a good introductory book like "Matlab for Engineers", they don't restrict themselves to providing a bunch of Matlab codes for a range of typical Engineering problems with a very brief explanation of Matlab language itself. A decent language tutorial is a necessary part of the package. It is even more desirable for a Finance-oriented SAS book because SAS language is more arcane than that of Matlab (for instance, SAS DATA step language is different from that used in SAS macros). If the authors of this book had organized it this way, it would have been a great publication, and priced at least $65, too. Unfortunately, almost no SAS language tutorial has been included (and fairly enough, the price is much lower - that's why I'm giving it more than 2 stars). The bottom line is that if you have no SAS background you should start with something like The Little SAS Book: A Primer, Third Edition. Then, if you feel you need to know more about SAS macros, try SAS Macro ... Read more

I don't understand why the other three reviewers liked this slim volume. It just has a few code examples covering a handful of niche topics that I feel few people know or care about. Financial research is a really rich and diverse field, ranging from accounting to options pricing to technical analysis. This book covers a minimal amount of topics. I don't think this is helpful at all. If someone could write a "SAS cookbook" a la "Perl Cookbok" that would be great.

I enthusiastically recommend the book to others, but hope that second edition will add discussion of PROC SQL - its knowledge is a must for any serious data manipulation, and its omission a major flaw - and SAS graphics.

Programming in SAS is soul destroying, and being chained to SAS is equivalent to being on Devil's Island, but it has turned into a lunatic asylum. Add to that the fact that you are trying to deliver financial analysis or support trading strategies, risk management, or option pricing, and you have a recipe for succumbing to insanity. If you are in that unhappy state, this book is very useful in the "cut-and-paste" world of cobbling together Franken-code to get a job done. I have not gone through every routine to check for bugs (I mercifully have escaped from the asylum), and I suspect they are there, but nothing would be beyond standard de-bugging. If you are in finance and have to use SAS, this book is an excellent edition to your weapons arsenal.

SAS, like income tax and Microsoft Office, is a necessary evil in the daily existence of a well-educated but poor white-collar worker such as myself. I've used SAS for many years and I'm a fairly good programmer (though not a profesional one0, but I still get frustrated over SAS all the time. The way the data steps work just kills my imagination and motivation. The present book offers some relief in the form of ready-to-use code segments for various topics in financial research. It's a thin volume at 150 pages, so its usefulness and coverage are limited. Covered topics include variance ratio testing in a random walk model, building event study code, and (most useful of the bunch) processing stock transaction data and running VAR regressions. Of course, if you are using SAS, chances you are smart enough to figure out most of the stuff on your own, but the book serves two good purposes: 1) to save us the time and frustrations of working with SAS, and 2) to help the SAS beginner... Read more