This book is designed for students and researchers who want to develop pro-
professional skill in modern quantitative applications in finance. The Center for
Applied Statistics and Economics (CASE) course at Humboldt-Universitat zu
Berlin that forms the basis for this book is offered to interested students who
have had some experience with probability, statistics and software applications
but have not had advanced courses in mathematical finance. Although the
course assumes only a modest background it moves quickly between different
fields of applications and in the end, the reader can expect to have theoretical
and computational tools that are deep enough and rich enough to be relied on
throughout future professional careers.