Företag som agerar på en internationell marknad står inför olika risker men också möjligheter vid en valutafluktuation. Företag som hanterar ett pengaflöde i någon form av utländsk valuta står inför valutaexponering när valutakursen fluktuerar. För att minska valutarisken kan företagen använda sig av olika valutastrategier. Enligt tidigare studier är det vanligare bland större företag att använda valutastrategier medan ’small medium sized enterprises’ (SME) har bristande kunskaper inom ämnet och känner en oro för att använda sig av de verktyg som finns. Eftersom SME-företagen står inför olika valutarisker som hanteras fragmentariskt ämnar denna uppsats att undersöka och analysera svenska SME-företags valutarisker och hur valutaexponeringen reduceras genom valutastrategier. För att besvara uppsatsens syfte valdes en kvalitativ metod med en deduktiv ansats baserad på företagens erfarenhet av ett ämne. Semistrukturerande intervjuer har genomförts med fyra svenska SME-företag som hanterar direkt import och/eller export och därmed påverkas av valutarisker och valutafluktuationer. Resultatet från uppsatsen indikerar på att svenska SME-företags valutarisker har ett signifikant samband mellan verksamhetsstruktur och valutaexponering. Resultatet visar på att valutaexponeringen påverkas beroende på hur företaget hanterar internationell handel vilket stödjer tidigare studier. Det har även visat sig att svenska SME-företag använder sig av valutastrategier genom hedging metoder. Det kan dock konstateras att majoriteten av de analyserade SME-företagen har bristande kunskap vilket stödjer tidigare studier. / Businesses that are internationally based are faced with currency risks but also possibilities. The businesses that are internationally based are faced with currency exposure due to fluctuation. To limit the currency risks businesses can utilize different currency strategies. According to previous studies, larger businesses are more likely to utilize these currency strategies, while small medium sized enterprises (SME) lack the knowledge about currency strategies and thus feel a disquiet about utilizing them. Since SME face a currency risk that is handled in a fragmented way, this paper aims to investigate and analyze Swedish SME currency risks and how they manage currency exposure through currency strategies.   The method used in this study was to implement a qualitative research method with a deductive approach based on the businesses experience of a subject. Semi-structured interviews have been conducted with four Swedish SME that handle import and/or export. Thus, being affected by currency risks and currency fluctuations.  The conclusion drawn from the result of this study indicate that Swedish SME currency risks have a significant relationship between businesses structures and currency exposure. The conclusion supports previous studies that currency exposure is affected depending on how the businesses manage their export and import. The study has also shown that Swedish SME utilize currency strategies through hedging derivatives. Although the majority of the analysed SME have insufficient knowledge about these derivatives which supports previous studies.

Using a sample of 141 U.S. small-cap industrial firms, I examine the firm characteristics that influence its use of foreign exchange derivatives to hedge exchange rate risk. Companies in the industrial sector produce goods and services that are used for the production of another final product. The performance of this sector is closely correlated to the level of demand from the final consumer. I find firm size, the amount of foreign sales, and firm liquidity influence the firm's decision to use foreign exchange derivatives to hedge exchange rate risk. For those firms that hedge exchange rate risk using derivatives, a second test examines the firm characteristics that influence the extent of its hedging activities. I find the extent of hedging is influenced by the amount of foreign sales, the amount of foreign assets, and the number of foreign subsidiaries the firm operates. A final test examines whether certain firm characteristics influence its decision to use options as part of its hedging operations. I find no evidence that the firm characteristics examined herein influence that decision.

Most firms are actively assessing the financial risks exposure and do determine a policy for the hedging activities. It is not solely the risk aversive attitude from the managers that need to be overlooked, but to provide sufficient information to the shareholder is desirable for minimizing the gap of information asymmetry, which is by itself considered a tool for value creation (Bergstrand et al. 2009:45-47). To narrow this gap, listed Swedish companies have since 2005 been required to disclose their financial risk in their Annual Reports.  By using a quantitative approach the researcher will review the financial risk note in Annual Reports of 2008 to identify characteristics and determinant variables on firms depending on whether they utilize currency derivatives or not. An independent two-sample t-test has showed statistical significance that there difference of the means regarding size, FX exposure and leverage between users and non-users of currency derivatives. The means of currency derivatives users were higher for Size and FX exposure, while lower for leverage. A positive correlation between a firm’s size and FX exposure was found, suggesting that the determinant for hedging FX exposure could be explained by the size of the firm and vice versa.

Data quality is one of the key problems in data management. An unprecedented amount of data has been accumulated and has become a valuable asset of an organization. The value of the data relies greatly on its quality. However, data is often dirty in real life. It may be inconsistent, duplicated, stale, inaccurate or incomplete, which can reduce its usability and increase the cost of businesses. Consequently the need for improving data quality arises, which comprises of five central issues of improving data quality, namely, data consistency, data deduplication, data currency, data accuracy and information completeness. This thesis presents the results of our work on the first four issues with regards to data consistency, deduplication, currency and accuracy. The first part of the thesis investigates incremental verifications of data consistencies in distributed data. Given a distributed database D, a set S of conditional functional dependencies (CFDs), the set V of violations of the CFDs in D, and updates ΔD to D, it is to find, with minimum data shipment, changes ΔV to V in response to ΔD. Although the problems are intractable, we show that they are bounded: there exist algorithms to detect errors such that their computational cost and data shipment are both linear in the size of ΔD and ΔV, independent of the size of the database D. Such incremental algorithms are provided for both vertically and horizontally partitioned data, and we show that the algorithms are optimal. The second part of the thesis studies the interaction between record matching and data repairing. Record matching, the main technique underlying data deduplication, aims to identify tuples that refer to the same real-world object, and repairing is to make a database consistent by fixing errors in the data using constraints. These are treated as separate processes in most data cleaning systems, based on heuristic solutions. However, our studies show that repairing can effectively help us identify matches, and vice versa. To capture the interaction, a uniform framework that seamlessly unifies repairing and matching operations is proposed to clean a database based on integrity constraints, matching rules and master data. The third part of the thesis presents our study of finding certain fixes that are absolutely correct for data repairing. Data repairing methods based on integrity constraints are normally heuristic, and they may not find certain fixes. Worse still, they may even introduce new errors when attempting to repair the data, which may not work well when repairing critical data such as medical records, in which a seemingly minor error often has disastrous consequences. We propose a framework and an algorithm to find certain fixes, based on master data, a class of editing rules and user interactions. A prototype system is also developed. The fourth part of the thesis introduces inferring data currency and consistency for conflict resolution, where data currency aims to identify the current values of entities, and conflict resolution is to combine tuples that pertain to the same real-world entity into a single tuple and resolve conflicts, which is also an important issue for data deduplication. We show that data currency and consistency help each other in resolving conflicts. We study a number of associated fundamental problems, and develop an approach for conflict resolution by inferring data currency and consistency. The last part of the thesis reports our study of data accuracy on the longstanding relative accuracy problem which is to determine, given tuples t1 and t2 that refer to the same entity e, whether t1[A] is more accurate than t2[A], i.e., t1[A] is closer to the true value of the A attribute of e than t2[A]. We introduce a class of accuracy rules and an inference system with a chase procedure to deduce relative accuracy, and the related fundamental problems are studied. We also propose a framework and algorithms for inferring accurate values with users’ interaction.

published_or_final_version / abstract / Real Estate and Construction / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

With the widespread usage of mobile devices and their applications, many areas of innovation have created a multitude of opportunities for mobile technologies to be deployed with very interesting effects. One such new area that emerged in the last few years is mobile commerce. It represents a system where various entities create real–life or digital assets, distribute information about them to interested consumers, execute transactions, accept various types of compensation methods, and finally deliver these assets; all of it in a secure and trusted manner, respecting users’ privacy. Since mobile devices are increasingly used for m-commerce, it is important to ensure that users’ data on such devices are kept secure. Mobile devices contain many of our personal and private data and information, since we nowadays use them for all kind of activities, both personal and professional. However, such data and information are not always treated in a secure and privacy friendly way. The goal of this thesis is to identify and provide solutions to security related problems found on mobile devices, such as communications, storage and mobile application design, and with the use of cryptocurrencies to combine the findings in the design of a secure mobile commerce system. As a result, this thesis describes a design and architecture of a secure e-commerce system, called eAgora, primarily exploiting mobile technology. The system is innovative as it treats digital goods, classified and called mobile commerce objects. Based on the attributes and anticipated use of such specific m–commerce objects, different security and privacy measures for each of them are needed and enforced. The goal was to design a system that deals with mobile commerce in a secure and privacy friendly way in all the lifecycle of the transactions. As users are mostly using mobile devices to connect to the proposed services, research first focused on mobile device security and privacy issues, such as insecure storage on the mobile device, insecure handling of user credentials and personal information, and insecure communications. Issues not only coming from the device itself but also from the nature of it; being mobile it is used in a different way that the classical desktop computers. Mobile devices are used in public, in an environment that cannot be controlled, and are interfacing a variety of networks that are not under the mobile device user’s control. Potential attackers’ interest was analysed in different mobile commerce scenarios in order to understand the needs for security enhancements. After having analyzed the possible threats, a methodology for mobile application development that would allow many common development errors to be avoided and security and privacy mechanisms to be considered by design was specified. Moreover, in order to provide secure storage and guard against active and passive intruder attacks, a secure Mobile Crypto Services Provider facility that allows storage of data on the UICC cards was designed and implemented. In order to secure communications, a secure e-mail application was designed and implemented. The application provides a user-friendly way to encrypt and sign e-mails, using the users’ already working e-mail accounts. The security functionality is completely transparent to users and ensures confidentiality and integrity of e-mail exchange. For the mobile commerce system, an architecture that enables exchange of m-commerce objects between different merchants, customers and retailers is proposed. Inthe architecture, policy enforcement and the feature to detect suspicious events that may be illegal and to cooperate with law enforcement was embedded. The newly defined technology of virtual currencies is used as a payment facilitator within the proposed architecture. Many of its innovative features are adopted but some are also extended, such as the secure use of the user wallet files, i.e. the files that link the user with the virtual currencies and enable payment transactions between customers and merchants. Although there is no distinction between different virtual currencies, Bitcoin is used as an example of a market valued trading currency to validate and evaluate the proposed secure e-commerce architecture and the findings have been applied on it. The thesis provides detailed use cases that demonstrate how the proposed architecture of eAgora functions in different complicated e-trading circumstances and how different security related mechanisms are used. The thesis concludes with the analysis of the research results and with proposed directions for future research and development works. / <p>QC 20150521</p>

<p>Previous studies have identified that the use of currency derivatives in order to minimize the risk involved with foreign trade can also increase a firm’s value. Evidence of this can be found in a paper such as Allayannis and Weston (2001) “Use of Foreign Derivatives and Firm Market Value”, which showed that companies in the U.S. that uses these currency derivatives has a higher firm value than companies that do not use them. However, there have not been any studies concerning the Swedish market. This is why the Swedish market is selected for this thesis but also since the Swedish market is a more open market than the U.S. market for instance. The more open, the more volatile is the exchange rate, which one could see as a reason to why Swedish companies should hedge even more. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the Swedish market and to find out if there is a relation between the firm value and hedging, analyzed with help of Tobin’s Q that gives us a measurement of the firm’s underlying value.</p><p>The analysis is done on the 50 largest companies in Sweden, although some of the companies are ranked lower in the category total asset but since not all of the 50 largest companies met the requirements, the selection had to go further down the list. The data is received from the companies annual reports (2005), this to receive the latest data. The companies are analyzed with help of Tobin’s Q and also EBIT (Earnings Before Interest and Tax), this to get a measurement of how the market value of the companies was towards each others with pr without hedging.</p><p>The result is presented in the analyze and shows that there is no relation between firm value and hedging, at least not in this research and with this selection of companies in the Swedish market. This result contradicts the findings in the paper made on the U.S. market.</p>

This dissertation examines the work of alternative economies activists who have spent the last 18 years constructing barter systems and local currencies in Medellín, Colombia. Through barter, these activists hope to spark an ethical re-evaluation of production, exchange, and consumption, and to create an economy that serves Medellín's middle-class professionals, rural peasants, urban workers, students and the chronically under-employed. They also see barter as an important social and political project to repair a social fabric torn by decades of violence and economic exploitation. For these activists barter is a counter to capitalism, violence, and social fragmentation; it is a new proposal rooted in cooperation, collective well-being, and the development of local capacities. Previous researchers have thoroughly examined the emergence, organization, and impacts of these types of alternative economies, but they have neglected what many activists consider to be the greatest challenge: to cultivate the new social relations and subjectivities necessary to enact and maintain those models. In the words of Colombia's barter organizers, the goal is to "change the chip" and "clean out the cucarachas" of our capitalist mindsets in order to "create a new culture of solidarity." This research is located at precisely that sticking point. Drawing on 12 months of ethnographic research, I examine the nature and impacts of barter and the challenges that barter activists face as they try to recreate economies, social relations, and subjectivities. Medellín's barter projects, I conclude, offer extremely important opportunities for cross-class and cross-generational interaction in a city that is violently divided. They also provide material and social supports for traders who are seeking to develop alternative subjectivities, and they help active traders gain control over the means of production and the conditions of their work. However, their counter-hegemonic potential is significantly limited by three tensions within organizers' strategies: a tendency to prioritize socio-cultural forms of activism at the expense of economic ones, a focus on conscious and moral aspects of subjectivity rather than material and embodied aspects, and a stridently anti-capitalist stance that discourages economic articulations and thereby reinforces the material and socio-cultural power of capitalism.

Crises in emerging markets during the 1990’s pose a challenge to understand why economies with apparently strong fundamentals did face severe devaluations and severe disruption in their functioning. We study three different aspects of crises: i) Contagion is defined as the possibility of a domestic financial or currency crisis to spread to other countries. We study the 1990’s crises and introduce a new measure for defining financial crises and isolating their impact on currency crises and vice versa; ii) During the 1990’emerging countries in crises suffered severe adjustments in the level of consumption. We build on Lucas’s measure of welfare loss and derive a more comprehensive measure that includes: total loss; loss related to changes in consumption growth rate; to volatility of consumption; and, to changes in the level of consumption; iii) Trying to explain the behaviour of consumption after crises in emerging markets during the 1990’s we found contradicting theoretical approaches and empirical results. We solve the model of intertemporal maximisation of consumption assuming that agents maximise over several periods at a time. We extend the intertemporal framework to include the decision of participating not only in the loanable funds market but in other financial assets and derive the solution for a stock market. The results imply an alternative to the specification of the Euler equation for consumption with more explanatory variables previously omitted.

Banks finance their operations in several ways, by shareholders equity, receiving deposits from customers and by borrowing from investors and other financial institutions. One widely used approach is to issue a bond. Bonds issued on the foreign capital markets is a way to increase the financing options and mitigate risk exposure. When a bank converts foreign capital to domestic capital, there is a degree of currency risk involved. One commonly used instrument for converting capital from one currency to another is a cross currency swap. Since the Global Financial Crisis 2007-2009 regulations imposed by regulators have increased. Banks are required to have sound risk management practises where risk exposure is estimated. In response to recent regulations banks have several departments which assess and follow up risks taken in the operations. As a result, at least two systems are used when valuing financial instruments, one where all trades are conducted, the front office system, and one where risk exposure is estimated, the risk system. The aim of this project is to investigate why there is a discrepancy between the two systems. We will also analyse how this discrepancy affects risk measures. By replicating the two systems’ valuation it is possible to distinguish why there is a discrep- ancy between the systems, regarding the valuation of cross currency basis swaps. When the replication is in place, risk measure calculations are conducted to enable analysis of the impact on risk measures. There are two main differences found between the two systems and how they value a cross currency basis swap: (i) how the underlying risk factors are used; and (ii) how an upcoming cash flow is settled. The effect of these discrepancies are that the risk system overestimate the risk exposure compared with the front office system. / Banker finansierar sin verksamhet på flera olika sätt, %har flera möjligheter att, t.ex. genom eget kapital, inlåning och upplåning från investerare och andra finansiella institutioner. Ett vanligt förfarande är att emittera en obligation, där obligationer emitterade på den utländska kapitalmarknaden är ett sätt att öka finansieringsalternativen och därmed minska riskexponeringen mot den inhemska marknaden. När en bank konverterar utländskt kapital till kapital i den nationella valutan, finns en viss valutarisk inblandad. Ett vanligt instrument för att växla kapital från en valuta till en annan är en valutaswappar. Allt sedan den Globala Finanskrisen 2007-2009 har regleringen från tillsynsmyndigheter ökat. Banker är skyldiga att ha sunda riskhanteringsstrategier för att uppskatta sin riskexponering. Till följd av nya regleverk har banker idag flera avdelningar vilka estimerar och följer upp risker som tas i verksamheten. Ett resultat av detta är att åtminstone två system används vid värdering av finansiella instrument, ett system där all handel utförs, och ett där riskexponeringen estimeras. Syftet med detta projekt är att undersöka eventuella skillnader i värderingen av valutabasisswappar och vidare analysera hur detta påverkar olika riskmått. Det verkar vara en diskrepans mellan de två systemen där finansiella instrument värderas, speciellt med avsende på valutabasisswappar. Genom att replikera de två systemens värdering är det möjligt att urskilja varför det finns en diskrepans. Replikering av de två systemen låg till grund för beräkningen av riskmått samt analysen av hur skillnaderna påverkar dessa. % Resultat De huvudsakliga skillnaderna mellan de två systemen avsenede värderingen av valutabasisswappar är: (i)hur de underliggande riskfaktorerna används, och (ii) hur nästkommande kassaflöde (kupong) bestäms. Effekten av dessa skillnader är att systemet där riskexponering estimeras övervärderar risken jämfört med om risken skulle estimerats i systemet där all handel utförs.