This is an academic text in Business Valuation, which is a sub-field of Economics. Excerpts... "Business appraisers who seek substantive answers to common valuation questions, questions that may not have been adequately answered in the current business valuation literature, may find this text engaging, informative and thought-provoking" (p. v). "For practitioners who would like to provide substantive, compelling, and convincing support for their deviations from generally accepted business valuation practice, in order to meet a Daubert Challenge for example, this text may provide a useful resource" (p. iv). "For academic economists, especially those looking for instructive real world examples of Applied Microeconomics, this text may provide several examples of how economic theory is applied in business valuation practice" (p. v). "Financial economists may find the author"s analysis and conclusions regarding a competitive asset market risk-return relationship, which is discussed in the context of the Traditional CAPM, to be controversial, yet thought-provoking" (p. vi). "Economics underlies much of business valuation theory and practice, yet there appears to be surprisingly little explanation of how it fits into and underlies the typical business valuation analysis. Indeed, analyses of market value are inextricably linked to an underlying foundation of Economics, since market value (and price) is a function of the interaction of market supply and demand" (p. v). "...the typical absence of an explicit Fair Market supply and demand analysis of the DLOM, one which is consistent with accepted economic theory...raises a red flag. The present author does not see how one can sufficiently support a claim that one"s DLOM analysis produces a Hypothetical Fair Market discount when an explicit (or even a readily-apparent implicit) analysis of the Hypothetical Fair Market (i.e., Hypothetical Market supply and demand curves) is not performed" (p. 285). "From a larger perspective, this text attempts to link and integrate business valuation theory and practice with its economic underpinnings in formal and explicit ways" (p. v). "Consistent with the present author"s view, Markowitz (2008)...concludes that it is inaccurate to interpret the Traditional CAPM"s positive, linear relation between expected beta risk and expected return as indicating or meaning that "CAPM investors are paid for bearing systematic risk" (p. 91)" (p. 362). "...risk-loving investors are willing to take on the extra risk in return for the opportunity to earn a higher rate of return that was created by a higher up-side variance in Asset 1"s normal probability distribution. That does not mean that risk-loving investors "require", or even expect, that they will earn a higher up-side rate of return. There is no certainty that anyone will earn a higher rate of return on assets with higher systematic risk..." (p. 388). "Notice that there is no universal rule or expectation of receiving a higher rate of return on an investment in the more risky asset. The opportunity, which is not a certainty, to earn a possible higher rate of return is reserved for only those investors who are quick enough to purchase Asset 1 before Asset 1"s price has a chance to adjust fully upward to its new equilibrium level that is commensurate with its now-higher systematic risk" (p. 390). "if a positive risk-return relationship is not representative of the adjustment process toward a new competitive asset market equilibrium, a Fair Market DLOM may be unfounded. The present author has shown that, when one assumes that a competitive asset market includes heterogeneous investors (risk-loving as well as risk-averse investors), where risk-loving investors" aggregate response can dominate that of risk-averse investors, ...a competitive asset market may exhibit a negative risk-return relationship" (pp. 396-397).