If you have studied calculus, read all three chapters. They will give you an
insight into the historical development of an important concept of fixed-
income mathematics and an intuitive idea of where they might be used, as well
as the mathematical background for further use. If you have not studied cal-
culus, you should at least read the first two of the three chapters. Perhaps you
should also study calculus.
Duration is a risk measure as well as a time measure. We present this dis-
cussion of duration as a natural outgrowth of our presentation of risk (or
volatility) measures in Chapter 14. We show how duration displays the same
requirements of risk measures that we discussed in the previous chapter, and
so it is a natural risk measure for analytical ...