In this book we shall study linear functional equations of the form m bu(x) == Lak(X)U(Qk(X)) = f(x), (1) k=l where U is an unknown function from a given space F(X) of functions on a set X, Qk: X -+ X are given mappings, ak and f are given functions. Our approach is based on the investigation of the operators given by the left-hand side of equa- tion (1). In what follows such operators will be called functional operators. We will pay special attention to the spectral properties of functional operators, first of all, to invertibility and the Noether property. Since the set X, the space F(X),...