| 1. |
- Vesterberg, Viktor
(författare)
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Ethnicizing Employability : Governing the Unemployed in Labour Market Projects in Sweden
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The dissertation analyzes labour market projects co-financed by the European Social Fund (ESF) targeting unemployed migrants and ethnicized groups. The analysis is qualitative, discourse-oriented and based on Foucault’s concept of governmentality. More specifically, it is highlighted how the target groups are ethnicized through discourses of employability and learning. The thesis consists of four articles. In the first three articles, focus is mainly on how the projects present themselves through their project descriptions in the ESF project bank and the fourth article is mainly based on ethnographic material. Overall, this dissertation highlights different aspects of inclusion work directed towards migrants and ethnicized target groups that can be seen as problematic and sometimes contradictory. Tendencies to individualize unemployment and thus positioning the unemployed project participants as responsible for their situation is interrogated in the thesis. Further, it is analyzed how culture and ethnicity is used in ways that are likely to strengthen the target groups ‘Otherness’ in relation to a ‘Swedishness’ that often become synonymous with what is perceived as normal and thus widening the gap between ‘us’ and ‘them’ when the stated goal is the opposite. This dissertation can serve as a starting point to reflect on how inclusion efforts and labour market projects seeking to produce social inclusion and employability may be at risk to categorize people in different ways, which can sometimes be problematic in relation to what the efforts seek to achieve.
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| 2. |
- Sundberg, Marcus, 1975-
(författare)
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Essays on Spatial Economies and Organization
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis concerns both static and dynamic modeling in a spatial computable general equilibrium setting. First, we have applied a static framework for the assessment of economic impacts of the Öresund bridge. Secondly, we make an attempt to enhance the static framework through the introduction of economic dynamics. Third, we introduce the STRAGO model, incorporating monopolistic competition, dynamics and additive transport costs. STRAGO is applied to the analysis of effects from a kilometer tax on freight. The last paper presents a framework for studying the division, or fragmentation of production. This framework uses the standard theory of monopolistic competition, with a production chain extension, through a recursive view of markets. The optimal level of fragmentation in such industries is studied.
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| 3. |
- Dackehag, Margareta
(författare)
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Essays on Sickness Insurance, Absence Certification and Social Norms
- 2007
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The thesis consists of an introductory chapter and three essays, considering sickness insurance, social norms and absence certification. The first essay, Group-Specific Social Norms and Economic Incentives in a General Welfare System, investigates the interaction between economic incentives and social influences in a general welfare system. We relate the results to sickness insurance. The model in Lindbeck, Nyberg & Weibull (1999) is modified by dividing the population into two groups, which are governed by group-specific social work norms. The behaviour of the two groups is studied in separate welfare systems as well as a shared system. We find that group affiliation matters for the generosity of the welfare policy, in terms of tax rate and transfer level, and for the share of transfer recipients. Furthermore, in a first-best scenario, it is observed that a restriction on the recipient share in exchange for a generous transfer may be optimal. Regarding the social norm, we find an ambiguous effect on the optimal welfare policy in a first-best scenario, whereas it implies a transfer increase in a second-best scenario. In the second essay, Sickness Absence Certification, we model sickness absence certification by assuming that the physician may certify absence for a worker without verifying that his ability to work is impaired due to sickness. Physicians with ?strict? as well as ?lax? sick-listing routines interact with workers who differ in their motivation for work. Depending on the physician type, or types, available and the expectations thereof, ?less motivated? workers are sick-listed regardless of working ability, while ?motivated? workers are sick-listed conditional on the observation of health-related ability impairment. We consider various policy instruments that the insurer may employ against a perceived misuse of the insurance and discuss their welfare implications, taking into account the match between worker and physician as well as the match between labour activity and working ability. The third essay, Occupational Physicians and General Practitioners ? Implications for Sickness Absence Certification, compares the certification practices of the occupational physician with those of the general practitioner. Whereas the latter adjusts his practices to the preferences of the worker, the former may have a restrictive attitude towards sick-listing, due to the client?s, that is the firm?s, influence. In contrast to the occupational physician's assessment of working ability, the general practitioner's assessment is imprecise, which implies an over-certification of sick-leave claims. Both ?less motivated? and ?motivated? workers prefer physicians with adjustable practices, resulting in different treatments of the workers regarding absence certification, provided that workers are able to attach expectations about treatment to individual physicians. However, ?motivated? workers also prefer correct information about ability, implying a risk of ?involuntary? sickness absence when general practitioners certify absence.
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| 4. |
- Zaher, Fadi
(författare)
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Evaluating Asset-Pricing Models in International Financial Markets
- 2006
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of three empirical studies on asset-prices in international financial markets. The purpose is three-fold. First, to evaluate whether good predictions of economic variables may be obtained by pooling information from a broad group of financial variables. Second, to formulate asset-pricing models from seven established stock markets. Third, to evaluate the asset-pricing models in the presence of short-sales.Chapter 2 applies a large data set, consisting of 167 monthly time series for the UK, both economic and financial, to simulate out-of-sample predictions of industrial production, inflation, three-month Treasury-Bills and other variables. Fifteen dynamic factor models that allow forecasting based on large panels of time series are considered. The performances of these factor models are then compared to the following competing models: a simple univariate autoregressive, a vector autoregressive, a leading indicator, and a non-expectational Phillips curve models. The results show that the dynamic factor models outperform the competing models in forecasting at 6-, 12-, and 24-month horizons. Two main findings are highlighted. First, the financial markets have a predictive power in terms of economic activity. Second, for some variables, the dynamic factor model appears to be more reliable than other competing models.In an attempt to analyze the equity premium puzzle and the risk-free rate puzzle, Chapter 3 compares different asset-pricing models within an international framework. To do so, it evaluates the performance of the following models: time separable-constant relative risk aversion, internal habit, external habit with externality, external habits which yield a constant risk-free rate, adaptive learning with constant gain, and state non-separability. The data are from seven industrialized countries, namely the United States, Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, France, Denmark, and Sweden. Regarding empirical evidence, this thesis uses the Hansen-Jagannathan approaches to impose volatility restrictions on the asset-pricing models. The time-separable, adaptive learning and external habit models fail, and the evidence favors the internal habit persistence model. However, success is limited to some countries and to the equity premium puzzle rather than the risk-free rate puzzle. Finally, the state-non-separable specification consistently resolves the equity premium puzzle for all the countries.Chapter 4 analyzes the effect of market frictions on the equity premium puzzle. Indeed, in the standard asset-pricing model with time-separable preferences, the volatility of the intertemporal marginal rate of substitution is too low for plausible values of risk aversion to be consistent with consumption and asset return data. Following this, the Hansen-Jagannathan method is applied to evaluate the equity premium puzzle for the UK in two directions. First, the time-separable model, the internal and the external habit formation models and the state non-separable model are examined under the assumptions of both frictionless markets and market frictions. Second, a bootstrap experiment is conducted to show that these asset-pricing models violate the Hansen-Jagannathan bound in almost all the samples. Indeed, because of the changes in the sample means in consumption growth and asset returns, all the models appear to be weak under frictionless markets. By contrast, asset-pricing models with market frictions are much more successful in the bootstrap experiment.
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| 5. |
- Otto, Opira
(författare)
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Trust, identity and beer : institutional arrangements for agricultural labour in Isunga village in Kiryandongo district, midwestern Uganda
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis explores the role and influence of institutions on agricultural labour transactions in Isunga village in Kiryandongo District, Midwestern Uganda. It primarily focuses on how farmers structure, maintain and enforce their labour relationships during crop farming. The study is based on semi-structured interviews of twenty households and unstructured interviews with representatives of farmers associations. These interviews show that other than household labour, the other common labour arrangements in the village include farm work sharing, labour exchanges and casual wage labour. Farm work sharing and labour exchanges involve farmers temporarily pooling their labour into work groups to complete tasks such as planting, weeding or harvesting crops on members' farms in succession. This is done under strict rules and rewarded with 'good' beer and food. Against this background, the study asks what institutions really are, why they matter and what we can learn about them. Literature suggests that institutions influence labour transactions by their effects on transaction costs and the protection of contractual rights. However, literature does not suggest which institutions are best for agricultural labour transactions. Taking institutions to be the 'rules of the game', with farmers as 'players' who strategically use these rules to their advantage, the study focused on the interaction between institutions and farmers. The major findings of the study are: (a) farmers' choices of institutions are influenced by the characteristics of transactions, the costs of using institutions for handling labour dealings, the fairness and predictability of the outcome of contract enforcement mechanisms, and socio-cultural factors such as kin/ethnic status, morality and affection, (b) formal institutions in Isunga are either weak, ineffective or absent. So, farmers rely heavily on institutions embedded in social norms and networks to structure their transactional relationships, to ensure the performance of the respective parties, and to settle disputes if they arise. The study concludes that agricultural labour transactions in Isunga involve judgements of personal characteristics and social roles expressed as reputation and trustworthiness.
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| 6. |
- Bryngelsson, David, 1981
(författare)
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Land-use competition and agricultural greenhouse gas emissions in a climate change mitigation perspective
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Productive land for food production, bioenergy, or preservation of nature is a limited resource. Climate change mitigation puts additional pressure on land via higher demand for bioenergy to replace fossil fuels and via restrictions on deforestation—two processes that limit the availability of land for food produc- tion, and may thus also raise food prices. Methane and nitrous oxide emis- sions from agriculture may also need to be reduced to efficiently mitigate climate change. This thesis deals with this in three ways.In papers I–II, we estimate greenhouse gas emissions from food production for current diets and expected future developments, together with alternative di- etary developments and potential technical improvements in the agricultural sec- tor. Costs and possibilities for reaching climate goals are analyzed for the differ- ent diets. The results indicate that a phase out of ruminant products would cut mitigation cost in half, for staying below a 2◦C limit, and it may be necessary if the climate sensitivity is high.In papers III–IV, a conceptual and transparent partial equilibrium model of global land-use competition is developed, analyzed and applied. The model is to a large degree analytically explored and price differentials between crops are derived. The model is subjected to a detailed characterization of its mechanisms and parameters that are critical to the results. We conclude that the total amount of productive agricultural area and bioenergy yields are of crucial importance to the price impacts from large-scale introduction of bioenergy. We also show how limiting bioenergy production to marginal land could be difficult to implement in practice.In paper V, we use two established indicators for poverty and sensitivity to food-price changes to capture peoples’ vulnerability to rising food-prices in four Sub-Sahara African countries/regions. In contrast to previous studies, we include all food products instead of just one or a few main staples. We found that the vast majority of people are net consumers of food and that the inclusion of more than main staples increases their net position as consumers and thus vulnerability to high food prices.
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| 7. |
- Al Ghafri, Aziza, 1982-
(författare)
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"I Wanna Be Free" : On the Challenges and Coping Strategies of Women Entrepreneurs in Sweden
- 2024
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Women's entrepreneurship is often presented as important for creating economic prosperity at the national level and is said to offer freedom, independence, and emancipation for women. The purpose of this study is to explore the conditions of women entrepreneurs who have different backgrounds in Sweden. To achieve this purpose, this study focuses on the challenges women entrepreneurs perceive and the coping strategies they employ to navigate these challenges. The study adopts an intersectional gender perspective, grounded in research on entrepreneurship, gender, and ethnicity. It draws on qualitative data collected through semi-structured interviews with women entrepreneurs in Sweden who have different backgrounds. The findings show that the challenges experienced by the women entrepreneurs included lack of support, being belittled, being excluded, having to work harder and be strong and having to adapt. The analysis discusses that these challenges can be understood as a result of gendered perceptions of entrepreneurship and processes of Othering. Ethnicity and race also play a role in shaping these conditions. The interviewed women deal with the conditions through four strategies: the assimilation strategy; the positive strategy, the ambiguity strategy, and the change strategy. The coping strategies are discussed in relation to empowerment and emancipation. From a theoretical perspective, this study contributes to developing concepts and conceptual relationships to capture how gender, ethnicity, and race impact women's conditions as entrepreneurs.
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| 8. |
- Winborg, Joakim
(författare)
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Financing Small Businesses - Developing our Understanding of Financial Bootstrapping Behavior
- 2000
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The overall aim of this composite thesis, consisting of five articles, is to develop concepts for furthering the understanding of small business managers´ handling of finance. The main contribution is the development of a conceptual understanding of so-called financial bootstrapping behavior in small businesses (referring to the use of methods for minimizing and/or eliminating the need for financial means for resource acquisition). Empirical data has been collected through two survey studies and one case study. The aim of the first survey study is to describe small business managers´ attitudes towards and use of financial sources and to identify variables influencing the use of financial sources. The overall conclusion is that the small business managers´ financial preferences and behaviors are in line with Myers´ (1984) Pecking Order Framework (POF). In the second survey, the use of financial bootstrapping in small businesses is examined. On the basis of a cluster analysis, different groups of bootstrappers are identified and named. Furthermore, variables separating the groups of bootstrappers are isolated. Finally, it is shown how the groups of bootstrappers differ in terms of their orientation towards handling the need for resources, referring to an internal, social and a quasi-market mode of resource acquisition. One of the groups identified from the analysis of the data was labeled relationship-oriented financial bootstrappers, distinguished by their reliance on personal relations with external actors for securing resources at favorable terms. In a third stage, a case study was undertaken focusing exclusively on the use of relationship-oriented financial bootstrapping. The findings from the case study show, among other things, that different modes of trust are important means for the relationship-oriented bootstrapper in securing access to, and use of, resources. It is moreover, shown how the use of different modes of trust changes over the development of the business. Furthermore, insights from the case study, together with literature studies within sociology, indicate that the behavior of the relationship-oriented financial bootstrapper can be understood as a social contracting behavior for securing the needed resources. Against this background, the final step in the thesis is to develop the conceptual understanding of the unique characteristic of social contracting, as opposed to financial contracting, for resources. In so doing, it is shown, among other things, how the concepts of social obligation, social capital, and trust together constitute the basis for social contracting.
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| 9. |
- Saeedi, Mohammad Reza
(författare)
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Pluripotent Dynamic Capabilities in the Internationalization of Firms : Focus on Learning, Innovating and Networking in SMEs from Sweden
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Internationalization of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) has been a considerable concern for international business (IB) scholars. Particularly, for those economies such as Sweden with small local markets, internationalization of SMEs could be fundamental. The firm-specific advantages (FSAs), including what the firm has and does, are crucial for SMEs to overcome in the face of their numerous different obstacles such as liability of smallness (LOS) and liability of foreignness (LOF).Examining the extant literature on the evolution of IB theories indicates that over time, IB scholars have been reaching to dynamic-based FSAs (what the firm does) as the source of developing and protecting sustainable competitive advantages (SCA) across national borders in a changing business environment. The nature of dynamic-based FSAs could be similar to dynamic capabilities. But, when it comes to determining specific component factors of dynamic-based FSAs (as dynamic capabilities), there has been little agreement between IB researchers. In other words, the room of the dynamic capabilities is still dark. In this respect, shedding light into this room, particularly in the area of IB studies, is crucial. In addition, after determining the component factors of the dynamic-based FSAs, it is also critical to know the likely relationships between the identified component factors as well as their impact on the SMEs’ international performance (IP) as an important outcome of the internationalization. This means that there is a potential theoretical gap associated with the conceptualization of the component factors of the dynamic-based FSAs on one hand, and a potential empirical gap on the other. Given both theoretical and empirical research gaps, the purpose of this study is to examine, from a theoretical perspective, the nature of the dynamic-based FSA and its related component factors in the IB context, as well as empirically explore how SMEs’ IP is influenced by the identified component factors of the dynamic-based FSAs.To perform this study, first of all, based on lenses of the resource-based view (RBV) and dynamic capability view (DCV), the literature on organizational capability in the context of the IB studies was systematically reviewed to fill the theoretical gap. Consequently, three component factors of dynamic-based FSAs including networking capability (NC) as a relational-based FSA, innovative capability (IC) as an innovative-based FSA and absorptive capacity (ACAP) as a learning-based FSA were identified, all of which are pluripotent and dynamic in nature. Then, a deductive approach was followed to develop several hypotheses and the associated conceptual model. Furthermore, a survey strategy, collecting data from 330 Swedish internationalized manufacturing SMEs, was applied to accomplish the purpose of the study. Then, the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) as a quantitative method was used to analyze the collected data.The results of the PLS-SEM analysis show that the SMEs’ international performance (IP) is positively influenced by the three identified component factors, whether directly or indirectly. In this regard, ACAP and NC are the two reliable predictors (directly) of the SMEs’ IP. The results indicate that innovative capability (IC) does not have direct impact on the SMEs’ IP, and that its effect is fully transmitted on IP only by the mediating effect of the networking capability (NC). Further analysis showed that ACAP, as an endogenous latent variable, additionally has a positive indirect association with SMEs’ international performance (IP). Moreover, the results also indicate that innovative capability is directly and positively affected by ACAP (innovating-by-learning effect). It was also empirically revealed that ACAP is a very strong predictor for networking capability, which is labeled as the networking-by-learning effect. Another major finding was that in internationalized SMEs, NC is strongly, directly and positively affected by IC; this effect also is termed as the networking-by-innovating effect. The overall picture resulting from the PLS- SEM analysis indicates that ACAP in internationalized SMEs is a wellspring to develop both innovative capability and networking capability, as well as influence SMEs’ IP. Furthermore, these results suggest that the networking capability is a vital gateway to transmit the effect of the other two component factors on IP and, at the same time, directly influence IP.
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| 10. |
- Talantsev, Anton, 1983-
(författare)
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Handling severe uncertainty in strategic project appraisal : Methods and applications of context analysis
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The long-term success or failure of a strategic project is largely shaped by its context. Therefore, the assessment of the external factors influencing the fulfilment of project long-term goals is vital for the effective project appraisal and planning.However, many projects are embedded in a complex, dynamic, and multi-stakeholder environment creating a condition of severe uncertainty. These aspects make both the assessment of a project context and the prediction of the outcomes challenging. In the face of these challenges, the overall aim of this thesis is to propose both conceptual thinking and practical approaches for the project context analysis.To this end, the presented work has adopted a design science research and formal approaches from the fields of systems analysis, risk assessment and decision sciences, to systematically understand the problems of the context analysis, and to develop and evaluate the solutions. This thesis presents novel methods for assessing project context, which have been implemented in the following decision support tools:• a tool for strategic fit assessment,• a tool for context factor analysis,• a tool for corporate reputation risk assessment,• a toolkit for stakeholder-based impact assessment of a policy,• a toolkit for assessing intervention strategies in pandemics.The proposed methods have been applied and evaluated in case-studies within various domains, such as business strategy, development aid, energy policy, and public healthcare. These studies have demonstrated the adequacy and usefulness of the proposed methods for supporting decision making in situations with varying levels of uncertainty. This indicates the potential of the methods to improve the effectiveness of the project appraisal practice.This research has concluded that a project context is a multi-faceted concept, and, thus, no single method is capable of the comprehensive assessment. Instead, an assembly of specialised but complementary approaches is required to adequately model and assess both the various aspects of the context and the uncertainties of different types.
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