This thesis consists of four self-contained essays. The first essay concerns educational choice and the returns to college in Sweden. I apply a recently introduced econometric framework that allows for self selection and treatment effect heterogeneity. I also examine the influence of cognitive and noncognitive ability on college choice and the returns to college. Essays two through four concern different aspects of intergenerational income mobility. In the second essay, we study the impact on mobility estimates from heterogeneous income profiles and, more specifically, life-cycle bias. We use nearly career-long income measures for both fathers and sons to give a detailed account of this bias and assess recent methods to deal with it. In the third essay, we present a simple model of intergenerational transmission and use it to analyze the dynamic behavior of the intergenerational income elasticity following structural changes. We find that past structural frameworks, for example in the form of past policies or institutions, matter for current trends in mobility. The fourth essay provides a cross-country perspective on intergenerational income mobility. We construct comparable data sets for Sweden and the UK and account for country differences in the role of parental income for various productivity traits of children. Finally, we examine whether such differences can explain the country difference in intergenerational income mobility.

The overall aim of this thesis was to study the influence of physical activity on health. Risks and benefits of physical activity is of particular interest since there is a global trend of less physical activity among youths and adults. In order to investigate this aim we used a database from a large cross country ski race, Vasaloppet, with participants with a wide age range, and with both elite athletes and ordinary people who exercise and promote their health. The most serious risk of strenuous exercise is sudden death and it is challenging to identify preventive effects of major endemic diseases. Using epidemiological methodology we studied 200 000 Vasaloppet skiers and compared them with the general population. Based on personal identification numbers we added data from Swedish national personal and health registers, clinical registers as the cancer register, Swedeheart, or Swedish stroke register, and socioeconomic information from Statistics Sweden. In the Vasaloppet database we collected data on age, gender, finish time and number of races during the period 1989 to 2010. We evaluated risk of death during the race in two papers (I,II). During 90 years of annual races, cardiac arrest occurred in 20 skiers, of which five survived. The death rate is in average two per 100 000 skiers. We also studied the association with cancer incidence (paper III). The overall reduction of cancer was modest among skiers compared with the general population, but for cancers related to lifestyle the risks were markedly lower. We investigated the risk for recurrent myocardial infarction and found a 30% reduction among skiers (paper IV). In paper V we showed that skiers with a first stroke have a lower incidence of all-cause death. The skiers had a higher frequency of atrial fibrillation but had less severe stroke and no increased risk of recurrent stroke. Thus our data suggest that a lifestyle with a high level of physical activity may work as a protection after a cardiovascular event. Summary: The short excess mortality in endurance physical activity is by far outweighed by the long term protective effect of exercise in cardiovascular diseases and cancer.

Globalization has led to the growth of international financial markets, as one of the results, the EU adopted IFRS in 2005 to meet the need of accounting globalization and harmonization. This action has triggered a debate about whether the adoption of IFRS is beneficial to accounting quality and information comparability. Meanwhile, China, playing a key role in the global economic development stage, realizes the importance of accounting harmonization and attempts to move towards the IFRS as well. However, to reach the goal that the Chinese companies produce financial statements that are the same as those that apply IFRS, there is still a long way to go. The purpose of this thesis is to examine whether the adoption of IFRS by EU has enhanced the quality of financial reporting and accounting information comparability. Additionally, the thesis further identified the seminal undertakings for the convergence of IFRS in Europe and pointed out the implication for China’s convergence with IFRS. The empirical findings in this thesis were obtained through qualitative interviews. The empirical findings suggest that accounting quality and information comparability has been enhanced with EU’s strong and full enforcement with IFRS. With the confidence in IFRS which is gained from the success of the EU’s adoption of IFRS, a coherent result was found that the convergence towards IFRS would also benefit China in accounting quality and information comparability, and further lead to more international investments. However, when it comes to the question whether China should emulate EU’s example to adopt IFRS directly or keep CAS (Chinese Accounting Standards) which is similar to IFRS, two mixed opinions were obtained basically from Europe side and China side. Through in-depth analysis with these empirical findings, the conclusion is that it is necessary for China to take steps to build intensive programs to enhance its capacity of the adoption of IFRS, so that it could adapt itself to the fact that the IFRS is already making its way around the world as a single set of high quality global accounting standards.

Cet article étudie la sensibilité des estimations de certaines variables explicatives de la croissance économique dans des régressions en coupe transversale sur un ensemble de pays. Il applique un modèle modifié de l’analyse de sensibilité de Leamer (1983, 1985). Mes résultats confirment la conclusion de Levine and Renelt (1992), toutefois, je montre que plus de variables sont solidement corrélées à la croissance économique. Entre 1990-2010, je trouve que huit sur vingt cinq variables ont des coefficients significatifs et sont solidement corrélées à la croissance de long terme, notamment, les parts de l’investissement et des dépenses étatiques dans le PIB, la primauté du droit et une variable dichotomique pour les pays subsahariens. Je trouve aussi une preuve empirique solide de l'hypothèse de la convergence conditionnelle, ce qui est cohérent avec le modèle de croissance néoclassique. / This paper examines the robustness of explanatory variables in cross-country growth regressions. It employs a variant of Leamer’s (1983, 1985) extreme-bounds analysis. My results confirm Levine and Renelt’s (1992) conclusion, but identify more variables to be robustly correlated with economic growth. Of 25 explanatory variables tested, I find 8 to be significantly and robustly correlated with long-term growth over the 1990-2010 period. The strongest evidence is for the investment ratio, government consumption share in GDP, the rule of law, and the Sub-Saharan dummy. I also find strong empirical evidence for conditional convergence, which is consistent with the neoclassical growth model.

This is a master thesis report for MSc in Industrial Design Engineering at Luleå University of Technology. It is a development project where a wax-bench for cross-country skiing has been developed. The wax-bench have been developed to facilitate the clean-up for the user and to gather all wax-accessories at one place. In this report the entire project can be followed from start to finish, how the requirements were found, who is the user, what should the product handle and how was the ideas ge- nerated. The final result is a wax- box that is vacuum formed and folded in the middle. In the box there are adjustable profiles to place the ski on and an adjustable attachment part in the center that attaches to the skis binding. The box acts as a collector of the waste that is produced when waxing skis, and as storage of waxing accessories when not in use. How to install the accessory in the box is not yet determined, but the idea is to develop a specific bag that fits perfectly in the wax-box and includes all the usual accessories. This bag should then be taken out when you wax and put back in the box after complete the waxing. / I den här rapporten kan man följa ett examensarbete för civilingenjörsprogrammet Tek- nisk Design på Luleå Tekniska Universitet. Projektet består av ett utvecklingsarbete där en vallabänk för längdskidåkning har utvecklas. Vallabänken har utvecklats för att underlätta städningen för användaren och för att samla alla vallatillbehör på en och samma plats. I den här rapporten kan man följa hela projektet från start till mål, hur kraven hittades, vem är användaren, vad ska produkten klara av och hur genererades ideer. Det slutgiltiga resultatet är en valla-låda som är vakuumformad och viks ihop på mitten. I lådan finns det justerbara profiler att placera skidan på samt ett justerbart fäste i mitten som fäster i skidans bindning. Lådan fungerar som uppsamlare av skräpet som bildas när man vallar skidor och som förvaring av vallatillbehör när den inte används. Hur valla-tillbehöret ska placeras är ännu inte fastställt men tanken är att det ska utvecklas en specifik väska som passar in perfekt i valla-boxen och som har plats för alla de vanliga tillbehören. Denna väska ska sedan gå att plocka ur när man vallar och placera tillbaka i boxen efter utförd vallning.

Submitted by Thassia da Silva (tdasilva22@gmail.com) on 2018-01-18T18:07:34Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Thassia da Silva--Key Success Factor Ranking for Intrafirm Knowledge Sharing A Delphi Method Approach in the Oil and Gas Industry.pdf: 2005716 bytes, checksum: 3357ec23f1c093750910850a6e7e9434 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by ÁUREA CORRÊA DA FONSECA CORRÊA DA FONSECA (aurea.fonseca@fgv.br) on 2018-03-02T19:31:43Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Thassia da Silva--Key Success Factor Ranking for Intrafirm Knowledge Sharing A Delphi Method Approach in the Oil and Gas Industry.pdf: 2005716 bytes, checksum: 3357ec23f1c093750910850a6e7e9434 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-03-12T18:57:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Thassia da Silva--Key Success Factor Ranking for Intrafirm Knowledge Sharing A Delphi Method Approach in the Oil and Gas Industry.pdf: 2005716 bytes, checksum: 3357ec23f1c093750910850a6e7e9434 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-12-18 / Knowledge and its propagation are unquestionably at the center of most, if not all, discussions on innovation, performance, as well as other elements related to firm success. Although the literature has proposed several key success factors for knowledge sharing, it has yet to explore how these factors rank in terms of importance from a firm nationality perspective. Through a Delphi Method approach, upstream professionals from four major multinational Oil & Gas firms (Brazilian, North American, Norwegian and French), with at least seven years of experience, ranked specific literature-based proposed factors for successful intrafirm knowledge sharing. There was a total of three rounds, where the first round had 41 participants, and the remaining two rounds (second and third) had 39 participants. On average, open door policy was the most relevant factors that lead to knowledge sharing among the four firms. In terms of the least relevant ones, acknowledgement and status were seen, on average, as factors less likely to lead to intrafirm knowledge sharing.

In the theoretical part, the diploma thesis summarizes the findings of developmental dyspraxia or rather developmental coordination disorder and deals with the issue of physical activities in this disorder. One section of the theoretical part are the characteristics of the activities, that probands from the practical part of this thesis regularly do, and their possible use in intervention. The practical part deals with an evaluation of motor skills in young cross-country skiers and in children from movement versatility section of Sokol union. We used the Movement Assessment Battery for Children 2 for evaluation. The next aim is to determine whether the level of motor skills correlates with the level of attention, that we tested using Test od attention d2. The last aim is to determine whether the level of motor skills is different for boys and girls engaged in the same sport. No difference in level of motor skills between cross-country skiers and children from Sokol union was found. However, statistically significant difference between performance in the single components of the test MABC-2 was revealed, this difference was found in the component of balance. The correlation between the level of motor skills and attention was not proved. Neither the difference between the level of motor skills of...

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the definition of the phenomenon corruption, and also if corruption can be measured. There are many definition of the concept, the most common and simplest definition being the one by the World Bank “the abuse of public power for private benefit” (Tanzi, 1998: 564). Various organizations measure corruption and each organization uses different methods to collect information. Many organizations present their results by ranking countries according to a scale, making a cross-country comparison. Using their own specific scaling gives a general view of how corrupted a country is. In this thesis, five international organizations are chosen. What they all have in common is that they are connected to corruption in some way. Most of the five organizations do not devote their time only on investigating corruption. Out of the five it is only Transparency International who focuses exclusively corruption. The other four organizations investigate corruption as a part of a more extensive research. The information from defining corruption and information based on international organizations are applied to four countries chosen for this study. The four countries are: Denmark, Greece, Italy and Sweden. The countries are chosen due to that they are all members of the European Union. Denmark and Sweden are generally placed on a high ranking when organizations measure corruption, indicating that there is little corruption in the country. Greece and Italy are not ranked as high as the two Nordic countries. This thesis is based on various literature and information from organizations, especially when investigating how corruption can be measured among countries.

Tränare och idrottsledare har en viktig fostrande roll i dagens samhälle. Det omfattande ansvaret berör även formandet av fysisk självkänsla bland unga idrottare och ett positivt förhållande till den egna kroppen ska främjas. Denna studie är ett samarbetsprojekt med förbundet Finlands Svenska Idrotts projekt "På samma linje" med ett syfte att skapa en fördjupad förståelse för hur tränare konstruerar kroppsideal i relationen till längdskidåkare i tonåren.  Data samlades in genom semistrukturerade intervjuer i två fokusgrupper. Totalt åtta tränare för längdskidåkande tonåringar deltog i intervjuerna. Resultatet visade att kroppsideal från många olika samhällsinstitutioner upplevs påverka idrottarna genom exempelvis sociala medier. Tränarna arbetar framför allt med idrottarnas fysiska egenskaper och förespråkar individualisering av träningsupplägg utgående från den kropp som finns till förfogande. En stor utmaning är att skapa ett öppet kommunikationsklimat där längdskidåkarna själva vågar ta ansvar i relationen till tränarna. Genom att jämna ut maktstrukturerna mellan tränare och idrottare kan en långsiktig och hållbar idrottssatsning eftersträvas.  Studiens resultat analyserades utgående från Merleau-Pontys tankar om kroppens psykofysiska helhet samt Jowetts relationsteori mellan tränare och idrottare. / Coaches have an important role as caretakers in today's society. This responsibility includes the shaping of adolescents' physical self-esteem and a positive relation to the body should be emphasised. This study is a cooperation with the federation Finlands Svenska Idrotts' project "På samma linje". The purpose of the study is to deepen the understanding of coaches' perception of body-image amongst teenage cross-country skiers.  Two focus groups were conducted with a total of eight coaches. According to the results young athletes are strongly affected by body-images from different institutions in the society, mainly through social media. Coaches primarily work with the athletes' physical qualities and advocate individualisation of training programs due to different body types. A great challange in working with body-image amongst adolescent cross-country skiers, is to develop a climate with open communication where athletes take responsibility in the relationship with their coaches. By equalizing the power-structures between the coach and the athlete, a sustainable sports career can be maintained.  The results of this study was analyzed through Merleau-Ponty's thoughts about the body as a psychological and physical whole along with Jowett's coach-adept relationship theory.

Title of the thesis: Current concepts of double poling by classic technique in cross-country skiing Object of the thesis: The spatial-temporal analysis of node points and kinetic phases of the kick double poling and double poling of selected competitors at the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Liberec 2009. Method: A case study in which we used the kinematographic method for the analysis of the kick double poling and double poling of selected competitors. We analyzed the video of the 15-km classic in the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Liberec 2009. For the analysis we used the software APAS. Results: We performed spatial-temporal description of node points and kinetic phases of the kick double poling and double poling of selected competitors. We characterized current concepts of kick double poling technique, because selected competitors were relatively homogeneous set. By double poling we found out flexion-extension pattern in elbow, hip joints of slipping lower limb and partly in knee and ankle joints of slipping lower limb which results in generation of great propulsive force. Double poling becomes more significant driving element than push-off. Keywords: cross-country skiing, kick double poling, double poling, kinematic analysis, top competitors