| 1. |
- Arrehag, Lisa, et al.
(författare)
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Cross-Border Migration and Remittances in a Post-communist Society: Return Flows of Money and Goods in the Korce District, Albania
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Ingår i: South-Eastern Europe Journal of Economics. - 1792-3115 .- 1109-8597. ; 3:1, s. 9-40
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Since the early 1990s, at least 600,000 Albanians have availed themselves of the option of temporarily or permanently emigrating. Although there is no denying that the consequences of large-scale emigration and the related return flow of money do have an impact on Albanian society, the question is, how? Drawing on the returns to a survey conducted in a border district in south-eastern Albania in late 2002, including a sample of 1,315 households, this paper assesses some of the basic features of remittances--recipients, channels, frequency, forms and use--in a society that has recently become a source of substantial flows of out-migration.
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| 2. |
- Bergquist, Daniel A., 1976-
(författare)
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Colonised Coasts : Aquaculture and Emergy Flows in the World System: Cases from Sri Lanka and the Philippines
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis conceives aquaculture as a transfer of resources within and between different parts of the world system. It is argued that due to inappropriate human-nature interactions, resources tend to flow from the South to the North, as a process of coastal colonisation. To study this resource transfer, coastal aquaculture is ap-proached from a transdisciplinary perspective, integrating natural, social, economic and spatial aspects. By combining world system theory and general systems theory, a systems view is adopted to relate aquaculture to forces of global capitalism, and analyse interactions between social and ecological processes at local and global levels. Emergy (energy memory) synthesis and participatory research methodologies were applied to two cases of aquaculture in Sri Lanka and the Philippines; monocul-ture of the black tiger prawn (Penaeus monodon) and milkfish (Chanos chanos), and polyculture of the two species together with mudcrab (Scylla serrata). The study reveals that semi-intensive shrimp monoculture in Sri Lanka generates few benefits for poor local people, and depends much on external inputs such as fry, feed and fuels, which implies negative environmental effects at local as well as global levels. Extensive polyculture in the Philippines involves more local people, and implies lower dependence on external inputs. Still, since benefits accrue mostly to elites, and mangroves are negatively affected, neither case is viable for sustainable poverty alleviation. Nevertheless, the study offers several insights into how sustainability assessment may be more transdisciplinary, and points to several factors affecting sustainability and fairness in aquaculture; the most important being mangrove con-version, local people involvement, and dependence on external inputs. Given that mangrove conversion is counteracted, extensive polyculture practices may also prove more viable in times of decreasing resources availability, and if policies are developed that favour resource efficient polyculture, and local small-scale and re-source poor farmers, instead of the global North.
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| 3. |
- Dauriach, Alice, 1991-
(författare)
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Financial institutions, companies, and the biosphere
- 2022
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- International organisations, governments and civil society have become increasingly vocal in their demands that financial institutions take social and environmental responsibility for the companies they invest in. Some financial institutions have started to assume this responsibility in practice by building international alliances and standards, by reallocating their capital, and by trying to influence corporate policies towards environmental and social goals. Through their ability to allocate and price capital, financial institutions are sometimes believed to be a leverage point to enact rapid and large-scale change towards sustainability. The influence these financial institutions have is still under-researched, however, especially on companies in sectors associated with changes in the biosphere which pose severe risks to human development. In this thesis, I ask: to what extent can financial institutions advance biosphere-based sustainability through their investments in companies? I have three main aims. The first one is to identify key companies and financial institutions which can be linked to changes in the biosphere that pose severe risks to human wellbeing. I select the most critical commodity production sectors driving large-scale biosphere change using insights from social-ecological systems science. I focus on economic activities that result in anthropogenic land use changes that either affect known tipping points in the climate system (the Amazon rainforest), or that increase the risk of emergence and re-emergence of vector-borne and zoonotic diseases. The second aim is to develop methods to assess the degree of influence that financial institutions have on corporate activities, drawing from finance research and management theory. I investigate the relationship between financial institutions and large companies, and especially to what extent companies are reliant on different financial flows for their operations, in order to determine through which mechanisms financial institutions could exert influence on them, if at all. Assessing the potential influence of financial institutions on companies requires combining existing methods and bringing together disconnected sources of data about environmental impact, business activity, investments, and financing sources. The third aim is to analyse what factors pose limits to financial influence.Paper 1 analyses the role played by financial institutions as owners in industries associated with anthropogenic land use changes and, as a result, increased zoonotic disease risks. We identify publicly listed companies present in nine regional case studies, as well as the financial institutions that invest in them. We analyse those financial institutions’ potential influence based on both their ownership size and their position in the network of owners.Paper 2 examines the origin of loans obtained by all companies operating in the high deforestation-risk sectors of mineral production, soy trade or cattle trade in the Brazilian Amazon. We assess to what extent companies rely on relatively unaccountable sources of credit, notably credit from secrecy jurisdictions and transnational intra-company credit, which may limit the potential for influence from financial institutions.In conclusion, I find that financial institutions have an important role to play in many sectors and regions analysed, but that this role is limited by a number of factors. These factors include the prevalence of non-financial shareholders in some companies, especially in case studies in the Global South, and the reliance of companies on internal finance and financial flows from secrecy jurisdictions. Companies themselves, and the inner workings of their corporate groups – their private owners, their subsidiaries in various countries, their ethical stance – seem to also be of great importance.
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| 4. |
- Dawidson, Karin E. K., 1975-
(författare)
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Property fragmentation : Redistribution of land and housing during the Romanian democratisation process
- 2004
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In the context of democratisation in the early 1990s, the governments in Central and East Europe (CEE) had to decide how to deal with property that had been confiscated under state socialism. Nationalised housing and collectivised land were to a varying extent returned to former owners and their heirs by means of restitution, as well as being distributed to other citizens who were in possession of the users’ rights to such properties. This thesis examines the spatial impacts, in terms of ownership patterns, of the way the redistribution of nationalised housing and collectivised land has been dealt with politically and at the local level in post-socialist Romania. It also locates the Romanian property reforms in relation to those of the rest of CEE. The impact of political directives on the property redistribution is analysed in relation to both structural influences, such as democratisation and antecedent property regimes, and implementation patterns in varied place-contexts. The thesis demonstrates that restitution was stifled due to disagreements between leftist and rightist political blocs, with the latter arguing for restitution whilst their opponents wrote the first restitution laws. A re-privatisation law allowed for the public sale of nationalised housing to tenants and thereby blocked the implementation of a restitution law, thus constituting a dilemma for constitutional democracy. In liberal place-contexts in West Romania, these obstacles to housing restitution were in part avoided. By contrast, land restitution was most widespread in the east, a stronghold of the left. This was because the legislation gives priority to restitution in areas of this kind, where smaller land-holdings dominated prior to 1945. The left-wing government pursued an electoral strategy of distributing small properties to a large number of citizens, and to current users in particular. This resulted in a fragmentation of historical property.
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| 5. |
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Economic Change in the Balkan States : Albania, Bulgaria, Romania and Yugoslavia
- 1991. - 1st Edition
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Samlingsverk (redaktörskap) (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This volume contains two papers, one by a Western scholar and one by a local scholar, on the continuing economic crisis, the reform efforts to date, and the prognosis for the future in each country. There is a rare English description by a Romanian scholar of economic conditions under Ceausescu and the first frank assessment of economic policy by an Albanian economist ever to appear in the west. The book also includes a comparison of events in the region with those in East Central Europe, where the prerequisites for transition to market economies and democratic politics seem closer to fulfilment. There is virtual unanimity among all authors - East and West - on the market economy as the only appropriate goal for the countries in question.
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| 6. |
- Engvall, Anders, et al.
(författare)
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Poverty in Rural Cambodia : The Differentiated Impact of Linkages, Inputs and Access to Land
- 2008
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Ingår i: Asian Economic Papers. - : MIT Press - Journals. - 1535-3516 .- 1536-0083. ; 7:2, s. 74-95
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Cambodia has been growing rapidly over the past few years, but remains one of the poorest countries in East Asia. This paper analyzes rural poverty in Cambodia to identify the factors that explain its occurrence and persistence. The reduction of rural poverty in Cambodia requires (1) improvements in agricultural productivity and (2) the establishment of other income-earning opportunities for the rural population. Our econometric investigation of the 2004 Cambodian Socio-Economic Survey shows that the main causes of poverty differ between landowners and the landless, and between different regions. Increasing inputs to agriculture (e.g., fertilizers) is critical to increasing the welfare of landowning poor, and linkages with the rest of the economy are of vital importance to both landowners and the landless poor.
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| 7. |
- Friberg, Örjan, et al.
(författare)
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Antibiotic concentrations in serum and wound fluid after local gentamicin or intravenous dicloxacillin prophylaxis in cardiac surgery
- 2003
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Ingår i: Scandinavian Journal of Infectious Diseases. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0036-5548 .- 1651-1980. ; 35:4, s. 251-254
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- One important aim of antibiotic prophylaxis in cardiac surgery is preventing mediastinitis and thus it would appear to be relevant to study the antibiotic concentrations in pericardial/mediastinal fluid. Local administration of gentamicin in the wound before sternal closure is a novel way of antibiotic prophylaxis and could be effective against bacteria resistant to intravenous antibiotics. This study measured dicloxacillin concentrations in 101 patients in serum and wound fluid following intravenous administration of dicloxacillin. Similarly, concentrations of gentamicin in serum and wound fluid were determined in 30 patients after administration of 260 mg gentamicin in the wound at sternal closure. Median dicloxacillin concentrations in serum and wound fluid at sternal closure were 59.4 and 55.35 mg/l, respectively. Gentamicin levels in the wound were very high (median 304 mg/l), whereas serum concentrations were low (peak median 2.05 mg/l). Dicloxacillin, 1 g given intravenously, according to the clinical protocol, resulted in levels in serum and wound fluid at sternal closure likely to prevent Staphylococcus aureus infections. Locally administered gentamicin resulted in high local concentrations, potentially effective against agents normally considered resistant.
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| 8. |
- Gentile, Michael, et al.
(författare)
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Housing allocation under socialism : the Soviet case revisited
- 2013
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Ingår i: Post-Soviet Affairs. - : Taylor & Francis (Routledge): SSH Titles. - 1060-586X .- 1938-2855. ; 29:2, s. 173-195
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Social or public housing is an important component of the housing supply in most European countries. Nowhere, however, has the notion of social housing been taken as far as in the countries that formerly were ruled by socialist regimes, most notably the Soviet Union. For this reason, it may be argued that the development of theorizations on housing has much to learn from this large but inconclusively studied example. One of the avowed virtues of socialism was that the system, in theory, guaranteed its subjects equal rights to housing. That this was not quite the case is well known in the literature, but in fact no robust evidence to support this view (or the contrary) has been presented so far. Therefore, this paper's aim is to investigate the functioning of the Soviet system of housing allocation, assessing its claims to social equity and justice. Based on a detailed case study of about 3500 Soviet-era housing allocation decisions made in Daugavpils, Latvia, at five points in time covering various stages in the development of Soviet power (full coverage of decisions made in 1953, 1960, 1970, 1980, and January-April 1990), we illustrate how much living space was allocated to whom. In addition, we detail the characteristics of the waiting times involved. We apply both descriptive and regression methods on our data-set, making a significant contribution to what is known about the outcome of housing allocation under socialism and, at a more general level, under strictly supply-constrained conditions.
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| 9. |
- Gentile, Michael, et al.
(författare)
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Intra-urban landscapes of priority : the Soviet legacy
- 2006
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Ingår i: Europe-Asia Studies. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0966-8136 .- 1465-3427. ; 58:5, s. 701-729
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Based on the urban experience of the Soviet Union, this article explores the value of the so-called priority approach for understanding the mechanisms that contributed to the creation of the spatial structure of the Soviet/socialist city. The changes in priority status that the various urban functions were subject to are highlighted. It is then proposed that these variations were instrumental in the formation of the internal functioning and social differentiation of the Soviet/socialist city and, to the extent that the pre-1991 urban fabric persists, of its post-Soviet successor. Finally, the authors propose a new model of the development of the Soviet/socialist city, fusing the priority approach with an extensive survey of previous scholarly work within the field.
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| 10. |
- Gentile, Michael, et al.
(författare)
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Soviet housing : who built what and when? The case of Daugavpils, Latvia
- 2010
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Ingår i: Journal of Historical Geography. - : Elsevier. - 0305-7488 .- 1095-8614. ; 36:4, s. 453-465
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Throughout much of the Soviet period, access to housing was a major consideration, both for individual citizens and employers intent on increasing their number of employees. Because of the heavy emphasis on industry, and despite the progress made within the area since the late 1950s, Soviet urban residential provision never managed to fully recover from the acute housing shortage that characterized the Stalin years. In this paper, we address the quantitative side of housing construction during the socialist era. Using the mid-sized diversified industrial town of Daugavpils (Latvia) as a case study, we set out to investigate the extent to which employers were involved in decisions concerning housing provision. To do this, we consult a large volume of archival records, our focus being on documents tracing entries indicating that new living quarters were ready and could be allocated to employees of sponsoring organizations and enterprises.
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