<p>De senaste åren har det förts en debatt i Sverige om utländska studenter vid svenska universitet och högskolor och om studieavgifter ska införas för denna grupp studenter.</p><p>Genom att försöka koppla de ofta förekommande argumenten i den diskussionen till den ekonomiska teorin om externa effekter syftar denna uppsats till att svara på vilka effekter av utländska studenter som, ur ett samhällsekonomiskt perspektiv, skulle kunna berättiga att det svenska samhället subventionerar deras utbildning. Det finns flera effekter, varav de flesta är externa, som gynnar svenska samhället och därmed skulle kunna berättiga subventioner. Den viktigaste är att kvalificerad arbetskraft lockas till Sverige.</p>

<p>In this study the technical efficiency of 142 cotton farmers in Burkina Faso has been estimated. The aim has been to detect the technical efficiency and to explain it by socioeconomic factors. For this, a model has been created where the technical efficiency is regressed against certain socioeconomic variables.</p><p>The database for this study, which has been collected from the main agricultural zones in Burkina Faso - West, North and East - has been provided by INERA. The database has been complemented through field studies to cotton producing villages and systemized by the authors. The software package Frontier has been used to conduct the necessary statistical regressions for a sample of 142 cotton farmers. The technical efficiency scores have been obtained by using a stochastic production function approach in a two stage estimation process.</p><p>The result from the Frontier estimation outputs shows that there is not much room for improvement of technical efficiency. Thereby an increase in technical efficiency of Burkina Faso’s cotton producers is not the way to go in order to increase the cotton production. However, from the chosen socioeconomic variables, it can be detected that the producers that have received agricultural training are more productive than those who have not. Also, specialization on cotton production yields higher productivity. However, due to the fact that the cotton farmers can already be considered efficient given the present state of technology and inputs, domestic efforts are not enough rather the efforts has to be put on reducing the international trade barriers in order to increase the development of Burkina Faso.</p>

<p>Då både arbetet för att sänka koldioxidutsläppen och för att öka andelen förnybar energiproduktion påverkar energimarknaden, finns anledning att misstänka att vissa konflikter kan uppstå mellan de båda målen. I uppsatsen används en modell av elmarknaden med två utbudsnivåer och två efterfrågenivåer, för att undersöka vilka effekter som kan förväntas av dubbla miljömål. Uppsatsens huvudsakliga resultat är att stöd till förnybara energislag inte minskar utsläppen av CO2 förutsatt att handel med utsläppsrätter redan bedrivs.</p> / <p>Because the CO2 objective and the renewable encouraging objective both influence the energy market, there are reason to suspect that certain conflicts could arise between the two objectives. In the paper a model of the electricity market with two supply levels and two demand levels is being used, in order to examine which effects that can be expected of double environmental objectives. The essay's main findings are that Europe wide aids to renewable types of energy do not decrease the CO2 emissions provided that emissions trading already are carried out.</p>

<p>Rörlighet mellan regioner har sedan länge ansetts vara en bidragande faktor till tillväxten i Sverige. På 1960- och 70-talen minskade rörligheten i Sverige. På 1980-talet ökade rörligheten i samband med den rådande högkonjunkturen. Den ökade rörlighetstrenden fortsatte en bit in på 1990-talet. Det finns delade meningar om vad det är som påverkar rörligheten mellan regioner. Genom att göra en regressionsanalys vill vi undersöka vilka variabler som påverkade rörligheten i Sveriges kommuner år 1998 och år 2003. Vi vill även ta reda på vad dessa skillnader beror på. Resultaten analyseras utifrån tre olika teorier. Vi analyserar även resultaten utifrån tidigare forskning. Vårt resultat visade en viss skillnad mellan våra undersökningsår, skillnaden var dock mycket liten. Arbetslöshet var den enda variabeln som var signifikant på fem procents nivån för båda åren. År 2003 var även andel kvinnor en signifikant variabel. År 1998 var kommuner med färre än 25 000 invånare och varuproducerande kommuner signifikanta variabler på fem procents nivån. Vår slutsats är att de flesta variabler som vi undersökte i vår regressionsanalys inte hade någon signifikant påverkan på den kommunala nettoutflyttningen. Vi tror att den största påverkan på nettoutflyttningarna kommer från de icke-monetära förklaringsfaktorerna.</p>

<p> </p><p>Over the last decade, the world economy has been characterized by an alarming escalation of global current account imbalances. The United States and many of other high-income countries have been running huge current account deficits; according to basic accounting principles, these deficits have to be counterbalanced by increasing current account surpluses in other parts of the world.  The latter (current account surpluses) are mainly incurred by newly industrialized economies in the East Pacific and rapidly developing oil exporters.</p><p>The paper investigates the medium-term determinants of the current account based on the sample of 24 countries over the period of 1990-2004. The choice of explanatory variables for the analysis is backed up by the two theories of current account imbalances, namely, the "savings glut" and the "twin deficits "arguments. The results of the regression model show that both above-mentioned theories can be credited for the emergence of global current account imbalances. Moreover, our findings suggest some remedial measures to improve the situation based on the mix of policy tools from both "savings glut" and "twin deficit" perspectives.</p>

The main objective of this thesis is to empirically investigate the impact of corruption on the economic development of Bangladesh using annual time series data for the period of 1984-2008. According to my knowledge this is the first attempt to apply a multivariate approach toexamine the relationship between GDP per capita and corruption for Bangladesh using time series data.I have tested the long run relationship between corruption and real GDP per capita for that time span using ARDL Bounds method for co-integration using International Country Risk Guide (ICRG) corruption index as a proxy to measure the level corruption in Bangladesh. The results of co-integration test confirms that there is a long run relation among corruption, GDP per capita and other determinants of GDP over this period. The long run estimates indicate that corruption has direct negative impact on per capita GDP i.e. economic development of Bangladesh. It shows that a 1% increase in the level of corruption during this period has resulted in about 10% reduction in per capita GDPof Bangladesh. It means that corruption is affecting the economic growth of Bangladesh adversely. In other words that Bangladesh could achieve faster economic development if it could curb widespread corruption.

Household debts in Sweden have been rising over the last 2 decades. Household debtsinclude both mortgage and consumer loans of households. The Central Bank of Sweden, alsoknown as the Riksbank, measures the household indebtedness situation in Sweden by thehousehold debt to disposable income ratio. With data collected, household indebtedness as aratio to disposable income has shown increasing trends, where it has doubled in percentageover the last ten years. Rising household debt is an issue that needs immediate attention as itcan lead to detrimental effects in the macroeconomic development and financial stability inthe economy. A model which includes the household debt to income ratio alongside otherindependent variables such as income and wealth is created. The dependent variablehousehold consumption will be regressed against the independent variables. This paper seeksto find the relation between household debts and household consumption in the Swedisheconomy, with the data available.

Price Level Determination When Tax Payments Are Required in Money. We formalize the idea that the price level can be determined by a requirement that taxes be paid in money. We show that if households have to pay a money tax of a fixed real value and the money supply is constant, there is a unique stationary price level, and a continuum of non-stationary deflationary equilibria. The non-stationary equilibria can be excluded if we introduce an arbitrarily lax borrowing constraint. Thus, in the basic model, tax requirements can uniquely determine the price level. When money has liquidity value, tax requirements can exclude self-fulfilling hyperinflations. The New Keynesian Transmission Mechanism: A Heterogeneous-Agent Perspective. We argue that a two-agent version of the standard New Keynesian model - where a "worker'' receives only labor income and a "capitalist'' only profit income - offers insights about how income inequality affects the monetary transmission mechanism. Under rigid prices, monetary policy has no effect on output as workers choose not to change their hours worked in response to wage movements. In the corresponding representative-agent model, in contrast, hours do rise after a monetary policy loosening due to a wealth effect on labor supply: profits fall, thus reducing the representative worker's income. If wages are rigid too, however, the monetary transmission mechanism is active and resembles that in the corresponding representative-agent model. Consumption Dynamics under Time-varying Unemployment Risk. We argue that adjustment frictions for durable goods generate a powerful amplification channel from fluctuations in unemployment risk to aggregate consumption demand. First, we use survey data to document that durable expenditures react strongly to increased unemployment risk, while the effect on nondurable expenditures is indistinguishable from zero. Second, we propose and calibrate a buffer-stock savings model that includes adjustment frictions for durable goods. Although not targeted in the calibration, we find that the model reproduces the semi-elasticities of expenditures to unemployment risk estimated in the data. Using the model, we find that the inclusion of adjustment frictions raises the aggregate demand response of durable goods to fluctuations in perceived unemployment risk by approximately 200 percent. Moreover, upon experiencing an adverse risk shock, the responsiveness of aggregate demand for durable goods to the interest rate and transitory income shocks is dampened. Consumption Dynamics under Time-varying Unemployment Risk: Evidence from Time Series Data. We investigate the relationship between consumption expenditures and unemployment risk using aggregate time series data for the US and ten EU countries. As a proxy for perceived unemployment risk, we use data on households' subjective expectations over the future unemployment rate. First, we employ a single-equation framework to test whether subjective unemployment expectations predict aggregate consumption growth when controlling for predicted aggregate income growth. Second, we exploit the timing of the survey interviews in relation to the publication of official statistics to isolate exogenous innovations to unemployment expectations in a small-scale vector autoregression. For the US, both methods suggest that there is a large effect of unemployment risk on aggregate consumption. For the ten EU countries, the evidence is mixed.

Hedge funds have the past few years become an increasingly popular investment alternative and in the last decade hedge fund assets managed have quadrupled to USD 2000 billion, a growth rate of around 25-30% per year. One explanation for this substantial increase is that hedge funds' minimum limits on capital invested has declined, which have made ​​them available to retail investors. The recent turmoil in financial markets has also contributed to investors finding their way to hedge funds, whose goal is to generate stable returns regardless of how the market develops. Using Sharpe’s, Treynor’s and Jensen's performance measures, I have investigated whether hedge funds manage to generate higher risk-adjusted returns than traditional managed funds. The data set for the funds’ returns have been collected from Handelsbanken's website and the time period examined is limited to the period 2006-02 to 2011-02. The results of performance measurements show that hedge funds have not been able to generate as high risk-adjusted returns as traditionally managed funds. When one analyzes the various hedge strategies performance it can be seen that stock arbitrage is the strategy that generates the highest risk-adjusted returns.

Human Capital and Development Accounting Revisited. I quantify the effects on development accounting of allowing for imperfectly substitutable labor services.  To estimate the degree of substitutability between skilled and unskilled labor services in a cross-country setting, it is sufficient to estimate the relative price of skilled labor services, and I develop a novel method for estimating this relative price using international trade data. My method exploits the negative relationship between relative prices of skilled labor services and relative export values in skill-intensive industries. I find an approximately constant elasticity of substitution with a value of about 1.3. When integrating my results into a development accounting exercise, I find that efficiency differences in skilled labor are more important than uniform efficiency differences in explaining world income differences. Under the traditional development accounting assumption of neutral technology differences, the skilled labor efficiency differences reflect human capital quality differences, and human capital differences can explain a majority of world income differences. Relaxing the assumption of neutral technology differences, an alternative explanation is that there are large skill-biased technology differences between rich and poor countries. Price Level Determination When Tax Payments Are Required in Money. We formalize the idea that the price level can be determined by a requirement that taxes be paid in money. We show that if households have to pay a money tax of a fixed real value and the money supply is constant, there is a unique stationary price level, and a continuum of non-stationary deflationary equilibria. The non-stationary equilibria can be excluded if we introduce an arbitrarily lax borrowing constraint. Thus, in the basic model, tax requirements can uniquely determine the price level. When money has liquidity value, tax requirements can exclude self-fulfilling hyperinflations. Swedish Unemployment Dynamics. We decompose the sources of unemployment variations into contributions from variations in different labor market flows. We develop a decomposition method that allows for a distinction between permanent and temporary employment and slow convergence to the steady state, and we apply the method to the Swedish labor market for the period 1987-2012. Variations in unemployment are driven to an approximately equal degree by variations in (i) flows from unemployment to employment, (ii) flows from employment to unemployment, and (iii) flows in and out of the labor force. Flows involving temporary contracts account for 44% of unemployment variation, even though temporary workers only constitute 13% of the working-age population. Neglecting out-of-steady-state dynamics leads to an overestimation of the importance of flows involving permanent contracts. Supply Chain Risk and the Pattern of Trade. This paper analyzes the interaction of supply chain risk and trade patterns. We construct a model where an industry's risk sensitivity is determined by the number of customized components that it uses, and countries with a low supply chain risk specialize in risk-sensitive goods. Based on our theory, we construct an empirical measure of risk sensitivity from input-output tables and customization measures. Using industry-level trade data and a variety of risk proxies, we show that countries with a low supply chain risk disproportionately export risk-sensitive goods.