Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is about facing responsibilities towards a company’s employees, customers, stakeholders, suppliers and the environment. As customers and consumers came to seek companies that were dealing with CSR a rapid wave of ”forced” implementations of social responsibility began. Fair Travel Tanzania, which has CSR as the foundation of the company, says that they are transparent about what they do and how they give back to the locals, could it be a problem with this? And how do they actually give back to the locals? Is it possible to measure the impact of CSR activities within the company? And if so, how?

The first chapter is based on a paper with Jin Li in fair division. It was recently discovered that on the domain of Leontief preferences, Hurwicz (1972)'s classic impossibility result does not hold; that is, one can find efficient, strategy-proof and individually rational rules to divide resources among agents. Here we consider the problem of dividing l divisible goods among n agents with the generalized Leontief preferences. We propose and characterize the class of generalized egalitarian rules which satisfy efficiency, group strategy-proofness, anonymity, resource monotonicity, population monotonicity, envy-freeness and consistency. On the Leontief domain, our rules generalize the egalitarian-equivalent rules with reference bundles. We also extend our rules to agent-specific and endowment-specific egalitarian rules. The former is a larger class of rules satisfying all the previous properties except anonymity and envy-freeness. The latter is a class of efficient, group strategy-proof, anonymous and individually rational rules when the resources are assumed to be privately owned. The second and third chapters are based on two working papers of mine in decision making under uncertainty. In the second chapter, I study the wealth effect under uncertainty --- how the wealth level impacts a decision maker's degree of uncertainty aversion. I axiomatize a class of preferences displaying decreasing absolute uncertainty aversion, which allows a decision maker to be more willing to take uncertainty-bearing behavior when he becomes wealthier. Three equivalent preference representations are obtained. The first is a variation on the constraint criterion of Hansen and Sargent (2001). The other two respectively generalize Gilboa and Schmeidler (1989)'s maxmin criterion and Maccheroni, Marinacci and Rustichini (2006)'s variational representation. This class, when restricted to preferences exhibiting constant absolute uncertainty aversion, is exactly Maccheroni, Marinacci and Rustichini (2006)'s ariational preferences. Thus, the results further enable us to establish relationships among the representations for several important classes within variational preferences. The three representations provide different decision rules to rationalize the same class of preferences. The three decision rules correspond to three ways which are proposed in the literature to identify a decision maker's perception about uncertainty and his attitude toward uncertainty. However, I give examples to show that these identifications conflict with each other. It means that there is much freedom in eliciting two unobservable and subjective factors, one's perception about and attitude toward uncertainty, from only his choice behavior. This exactly motivates the work in Chapter 3. In the third chapter, I introduce confidence orders in addition to preference orders. Axioms are imposed on both orders to reveal a decision maker's perception about uncertainty and to characterize the following decision rule. A decision maker evaluates an act based on his aspiration and his confidence in this aspiration. Each act corresponds to a trade-off line between the two criteria: The more he aspires, the less his confidence in achieving the aspiration level. The decision maker ranks an act by the optimal combination of aspiration and confidence on its trade-off line according to an aggregating preference of his over the two-criterion plane. The aggregating preference indicates his uncertainty attitude, while his perception about uncertainty is summarized by a generalized second-order belief over the prior space, and this belief is revealed by his confidence order.

Syfte: Huvudsyftet är att undersöka effekterna av införandet av IAS inom fastighetsbranschen och se om de nya principerna har lett mot en mer värderelevant redovisning. Delsyftet är att se på införandets effekter på det egna kapitalet, samt att utröna förhållanden före och efter införandet, då sett till två tidsperioder 2000-2004 och 2005-2009. Metod: Undersökningen är en totalundersökning som innefattar tio stycken företag. Studien sträcker sig från år 2000 - 2009 där 2000 - 2004 är perioden innan införandet av IAS 40 och perioden 2005 - 2009 är efter införandet. CAPM och Tobins Q används för att se om det finns skillnader i eget kapital samt eget kapital i förhållande till börskurs före och efter införandet.   Teori: Undersökningen utgår från Finansieringsteori, Effektiva marknadshypotesen, Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), Tobins Q, Redovisningsteori, Beslutsfattande och Human Information Processing Empiri: I kapitlet illustreras undersökningen i tabeller och diagram. Statistik programmet SPSS har använts för bearbetning av data och illustreras även i diagram för CAPM och Tobins Q. Ytterligare en tabell visas för substansrabatt och substanspremie för att se hur pass väl aktiepriset och eget kapital överensstämmer.  Slutsats:         Det finns ingen signifikans för att införandet av den nya redovisningspraxisen, IFRS/IAS, har lett till att börskursen kongruerar mer med eget kapital för perioden 2005-2009 än perioden innan införandet 2000-2004.   Det går inte att påvisa någon signifikans för att införandet av IFRS/IAS har påverkat kostanden för eget kapital mätt under perioden 2000-2009. / Purpose:  The main purpose is to examine the effects of the implementation of IAS in the real-estate business and see if the principles have led to a more value relevance accounting. The study also examines the effects on equity before and after the introduction over two periods, 2000-2004 and 2005-2009.  Methods: The survey includes teen business. The study extends from 2000 - 2009 where 2000 - 2004 is the period before the introduction of IAS 40 and the period 2005 - 2009 is after the introduction. CAPM and Tobins Q will be examined to see whether there exist differences in equity and equity in relation to the share price after the introduction.    Theoretical: The study is based on Finance theory, Efficient market hypothesis, Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), Tobins Q, Accounting theory, Decision making and Human Information Processing Empirical: This chapter illustrates the survey in charts and graphs. The statistical software SPSS was used for processing data and is also shown in diagrams for CAPM and Tobins Q for the development of all business together. Another table shows discount or premium so that stock buyers can evaluate how well the stock price and equity line. Conclusion:    There is no significant that the introduction of the new accounting principle, IFRS/IAS has led to the conclusion that the share price correlates more with equity for the period 2005-2009 than before the introduction 2000-2004. It is unable to demonstrate any significance that the introduction of IFRS/IAS has affected the cost of equity measures over the period 2000-2009.

The increasing usage of information technology in military affairs raises the need for robust high capacity radio networks. The network will be used to provide several different types of services, for example group calls and situation awareness services. All services have specific demands on packet delays and packet losses in order to be fully functional, and therefore there is a need for a Quality of Service (QoS) mechanism in the network. In this master thesis we examine the possibility to provide a QoS mechanism in Ad Hoc networks by using priority queues. The study includes two different queuing schemes, namely fixed priority queuing and weighted fair queuing. The performance of the two queuing schemes are evaluated and compared with respect to the ability to provide differentiation in network delay, i.e., provide high priority traffic with lower delays than low priority traffic. The study is mainly done by simulations, but for fixed priority queuing we also derive a analytical approximation of the network delay. Our simulations show that fixed priority queuing provides a sharp delay differentiation between service classes, while weighted fair queuing gives the ability to control the delay differentiation. One of those queuing schemes alone might not be the best solution for providing QoS, instead we suggest that a combination of them is used.

Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) built with commodity 802.11 radios are a cost-effective means of providing last mile broadband Internet access. Their multihop architecture allows for rapid deployment and organic growth of these networks. 802.11 radios are an important building block in WMNs. These low cost radios are readily available, and can be used globally in license-exempt frequency bands. However, the 802.11 Distributed Coordination Function (DCF) medium access mechanism does not scale well in large multihop networks. This produces suboptimal behavior in many transport protocols, including TCP, the dominant transport protocol in the Internet. In particular, cross-layer interaction between DCF and TCP results in flow level unfairness, including starvation, with backlogged traffic sources. Solutions found in the literature propose distributed source rate control algorithms to alleviate this problem. However, this requires MAC-layer or transport-layer changes on all mesh routers. This is often infeasible in practical deployments. In wireline networks, router-assisted rate control techniques have been proposed for use alongside end-to-end mechanisms. We evaluate the feasibility of establishing similar centralized control via gateway mesh routers in WMNs. We find that commonly used router-assisted flow control schemes designed for wired networks fail in WMNs. This is because they assume that: (1) links can be scheduled independently, and (2) router queue buildups are sufficient for detecting congestion. These abstractions do not hold in a wireless network, rendering wired scheduling algorithms such as Fair Queueing (and its variants) and Active Queue Management (AQM) techniques ineffective as a gateway-enforceable solution in a WMN. We show that only non-work-conserving rate-based scheduling can effectively enforce rate allocation via a single centralized traffic-aggregation point. In this context we propose, design, and evaluate a framework of centralized, measurement-based, feedback-driven mechanisms that can enforce a rate allocation policy objective for adaptive traffic streams in a WMN. In this dissertation we focus on fair rate allocation requirements. Our approach does not require any changes to individual mesh routers. Further, it uses existing data traffic as capacity probes, thus incurring a zero control traffic overhead. We propose two mechanisms based on this approach: aggregate rate control (ARC) and per-flow rate control (PFRC). ARC limits the aggregate capacity of a network to the sum of fair rates for a given set of flows. We show that the resulting rate allocation achieved by DCF is approximately max-min fair. PFRC allows us to exercise finer-grained control over the rate allocation process. We show how it can be used to achieve weighted flow rate fairness. We evaluate the performance of these mechanisms using simulations as well as implementation on a multihop wireless testbed. Our comparative analysis show that our mechanisms improve fairness indices by a factor of 2 to 3 when compared with networks without any rate limiting, and are approximately equivalent to results achieved with distributed source rate limiting mechanisms that require software modifications on all mesh routers.

Fair division is the problem of dividing one or several goods among a set of agents in a way that satisfies a suitable fairness criterion. Traditionally studied in economics, philosophy, and political science, fair division has drawn a lot of attention from the multiagent systems community, since this field is strongly concerned about how a surplus (or a cost) should be divided among a group of agents. Arguably, the Shapley value is the single most important contribution to the problem of fair division. It assigns to each agent a share of the resource equal to the expected marginal contribution of that agent. Thus, it is implicitly assumed that individual marginal contributions can be objectively computed. In this thesis, we propose a game-theoretic model for sharing a joint reward when the quality of individual contributions is subjective. In detail, we consider scenarios where a group has been formed and has accomplished a task for which it is granted a reward, which must be shared among the group members. After observing the contribution of the peers in accomplishing the task, each agent is asked to provide evaluations for the others. Mainly to facilitate the sharing process, agents can also be requested to provide predictions about how their peers are evaluated. These subjective opinions are elicited and aggregated by a central, trusted entity, called the mechanism, which is also responsible for sharing the reward based exclusively on the received opinions. Besides the formal game-theoretic model for sharing rewards based on subjective opinions, we propose three different mechanisms in this thesis. Our first mechanism, the peer-evaluation mechanism, divides the reward proportionally to the evaluations received by the agents. We show that this mechanism is fair, budget-balanced, individually rational, and strategy-proof, but that it can be collusion-prone. Our second mechanism, the peer-prediction mechanism, shares the reward by considering two aspects: the evaluations received by the agents and their truth-telling scores. To compute these scores, this mechanism uses a strictly proper scoring rule. Under the assumption that agents are Bayesian decision-makers, we show that this mechanism is weakly budget-balanced, individually rational, and incentive-compatible. Further, we present approaches that guarantee the mechanism to be collusion-resistant and fair. Our last mechanism, the BTS mechanism, is the only one to elicit both evaluations and predictions from the agents. It considers the evaluations received by the agents and their truth-telling scores when sharing the reward. For computing the scores, it uses the Bayesian truth serum method, a powerful scoring method based on the surprisingly common criterion. Under the assumptions that agents are Bayesian decision-makers, and that the population of agents is sufficiently large so that a single evaluation cannot significantly affect the empirical distribution of evaluations, we show that this mechanism is incentive-compatible, budget-balanced, individually rational, and fair.

The impact of global economic policies on health equity and social development has been well-documented and, in the current phase of economic globalization, profound health inequities have been attributed to these policies. In response to these inequitable trade conditions, which are especially pronounced in the trade of boom-and-bust commodities like coffee, alternative trade models such as Fair Trade have proliferated. Although there is great potential for these alternative economic policies to achieve health and gender equity, these considerations have largely been left out of existing analyses, which focus on gender-blind economic, organizational, and environmental indicators. <p>To address these omissions, this study explores the experiences, perceptions, and aspirations of an organized group of coffee-producing women with regards to Fair Trade. The study was conducted in Northern Nicaragua in 2009 and focuses on the experiences of women supported by a local feminist organization, la Fundación Entre Mujeres, in an embedded, single case study design. It is informed by participant-observation, interviews, and dialogic focus groups. The study situates participants perceptions and aspirations in a globalization and health framework as well as an empowerment framework. Considered in this light, womens experiences provide valuable insights about the perceived and potential health and gender impacts of alternative models of trade and provide a vision for the future directions of these models. <p>The womens experiences reveal that although valuable benefits are being experienced as a result of participation in Fair Trade especially in terms of a higher income and a commitment to organic agriculture there are lingering doubts as to whether Fair Trade is actually "fair" or simply "better". The women supported by la Fundación Entre Mujeres aspire to more equitable trade characterized by solidarity, justice, a focus on womens rights, and a fairer valuation and recognition of womens efforts inside and outside of coffee. In order to move towards this "fair" system of trade, the current Fair Trade model must become more oriented towards equitable control for all of its stakeholders and must broaden its definition of empowerment so as to more actively and vocally participate in the broader contexts of international trade that are influencing health and gender equity for women around the world.

Uppsatsen behandlar ämnet turism och rättvis handel ur en geografisk synvinkel. Utgångspunkten är den ideella organisationen Tourism Concerns kriterier för en rättvis turism, som poängterar researrangörernas uppfostrande roll i marknadsföringen. Enligt detta NGO-perspektiv borde researrangören tillgodose resenären med information som möjliggör ett medvetet val, uppmuntrar resenären till ett mer ansvarsfullt och rättvist beteende väl på destinationen samt en rättvis beskrivning av destinationer i marknadsföringen. De menar att en påläst turist bidrar till ett mer rättvist förhållande mellan turist och lokalbefolkning. Fair Trade – rättvis handel inom turism behandlas i uppsatsen dels som ett medel för en mer rättvis regionalgeografisk beskrivning av platser, dels som en väg till regional utveckling. Uppsatsen syfte är att beskriva och analysera de tre största svenska researrangörerna, Apollo, Fritidsresor och Vingresor, information till resenären gällande ansvarsfullt och rättvist resande, dels genom konkreta råd till resenären, dels i marknadsföringen av destinationer i utvecklingsländer. Vidare undersöker uppsatsen även svenska resenärers inställning till en mer rättvis turism. Uppsatsen beskriver resenärens respektive researrangörens roll för en utveckling av en mer rättvis turism i framtiden. Den empiriska undersökningen baserar sig på analyser av researrangörernas hemsidor och kataloger, en enkätundersökning om svenska resenärers inställning till en mer rättvis turism samt en intervju med Eleonore Fauré på Fair Trade Center. Uppsatsens resultat är att både researrangörerna och resenärerna spelar en stor roll för utvecklingen av en rättvisare turism. I dagsläget krävs förändringar dels hos researrangörerna, dels hos resenären för att en rättvisare turism ska bli möjlig i framtiden. Researrangörerna måste bredda sitt ansvarsområde och även innefatta frågor av ekonomisk, kulturell och social karaktär, inte bara miljöfrågor. De konkreta råden till resenären och beskrivningen av destinationer i marknadsföringen måste bli mer sanningsenlig och öppen med de problem som turismen för med sig. Resenären å andra sidan, måste använda sin konsumentmakt genom att öka sina krav på och ställa frågor till sin researrangör för att dessa frågor ska få högre prioritet. Resultatet av min enkätundersökning visar att i dagsläget är detta inte fallet. Ur ett geografiskt perspektiv är dessa förändringar viktiga, eftersom en mer rättvis turism kan främja den regionala utvecklingen i destinationsländerna.

The fair-value hierarchy used in financial accounting has been criticized because of its complexity being the reason for several accounting issues. This study examines the underlying factors affecting decision makers in the process of fair-value accounting of financial instruments within the fair-value hierarchy. Research has been conducted through in-depth interviews with representatives of five Swedish banks. The findings have been analysed with a frame of reference built on prior judgment and decision making research. The results of the study show that the extent of the affecting factors vary between different banks depending on the banks' individual prerequisites.

<p>I examine whether financial statement preparers (managers and auditors) treat recognized versus disclosed fair value of option compensation differently. Recognition refers to items that appear on the face of financial statements and that are included in subtotal figures that appear in the summary accounts; disclosure refers to items that appear in words and amounts in only the financial statement footnotes. I find that fair value recognition of option compensation is likely to have a significant impact on net income. Firms in my sample granted options amounting to a median fair value of 7% of profits in 1996 and 11% of profits in 2004. I compare the terms of option grants and the properties of fair value estimation under a disclosure reporting regime to terms and properties under a recognition regime. Under a fair value recognition regime, I find firms reduce/eliminate option grants across all levels of employees, reduce the statutory length of options, and substitute restricted stock and bonuses for option compensation. The fair value reduction in option grants is on average 9% (0.4%) of absolute net income. In contrast, under a fair value disclosure regime, option compensation was not reduced. I also find that firms increase the bias in three inputs to fair value option estimation: volatility, dividend, and interest. This increase amounts to 4%, 2%, and 0.3% of fair value cost. Mandatory recognition firms also display increased dividend and interest input accuracy. Combined, these results suggest that financial statements reflect differences in behavior between recognition and disclosure reporting regimes, such that both real actions and fair value estimation are used to reduce recognized values.</p> / Dissertation