<p><strong>As the public becomes more concerned with the natural environment, one of the major topics discussed is the oil. Since there is no true source of knowledge how long the oil can continue to be extracted, it is interesting to know how long the world can benefit from such as scarce resource. Instead of idly watching as oil production decreases with time, which pre-measures could be taken in order to minimize a negative impact on an economy? The UAE is a thriving oil rich countries which for the past 30 years have experienced a vast oil wealth. Even though the oil gave wealth to the UAE, they should avoid any future oil dependency since it could negatively affect its now flourishing economy. Therefore, for the UAE to continue growing in the future it is in the best interest for the government to focus on a diversifying strategy that promotes the non-oil economy. By referring to concepts and theories of previous research in this field such as the Solow growth model, Resource curse and Dutch disease the authors find that the UAE had managed to diversify or not. Three sectors in different periods between 1970 and 2007 were measured: The oil sector, the non-oil sector and the government sector. Diversification changes means a decreasing dependency of the oil sector to the non-oil sector while the latter instead depends more on the government sector. Using British Petroleum (2008) and United Nations (2008) as sources, data was collected in order to draw a time-series regression analysis and test empirically for these diversification trends. The results for all periods confirmed that the UAE have indeed diversified and it could thus be observed that it started its successful strategy already in the 1970s. With the right government policy investments and the stability in the union, the UAE prevented from becoming dependent on oil and thereby not crowding out its important non-oil economy. </strong></p> / <p><strong>Med en ökad allmän medvetenhet angående naturmiljön så är oljan bland det mest omtalande temat. Eftersom inget vet exakt hur länge oljan kan utvinnas, är det intressant att veta hur länge världen kan förlita sig på en sådan begränsad resurs. Finns det förebyggande medel för att minska en negativ verkan på ekonomin istället för att passivt bevittna en sjunkande oljeproduktion? Förenta Arabemiraten (FAE) är en framgångsrik union som under de senaste 30 åren har åtnjutit en omfattande oljerikedom. Trots att oljan lade grunden för tillväxten i FAE, så börs unionen undvika sitt oljeberoende eftersom den negativt kan påverka den nuvarande blomstrande ekonomin. Således, för att bibehålla tillväxten i FAE för framtiden, borde det vara i statens största intresse att fokusera på en differentierings-strategi som främjar icke-oljans ekonomi. För att veta om FAE faktiskt har differentierat sig eller inte, används koncept och teorier för tidigare forskning kring områdets som t.ex. Solows tillväxtmodel, Resursförbannelsen och holländska sjukan. Tre sektorer mättes i olika perioder mellan 1970-2007: oljesektorn, icke-sektorn och statssektorn. Icke-olje sektorn förväntas minska oljeberoendet samt öka beroendet av statssektorn vilket resulterar i en differentieringstrend i ekonomin. Genom källor från British Petroleum (2008) och Förenta Nationerna (2008)  har data insamlats för att empiriskt testa en tidsserie regression och se förändringar mellan sektorerna. Under alla perioder i FAE blev en differentieringstrend bekräftad och man kunde därför se att denna framgångsrika strategi redan åtogs i 1970-talet. Med effektiva investeringar i den offentliga sektorn samt en hållbar stabilitet i unionen, undvek FAE ett oljeberoende och därmed främjade icke-olje ekonomin.</strong><strong></strong></p>

This thesis aims to assess the impacts of public loans granted by the OPEC Fund for International Development in the energy sector in selected African countries. The assessment is based on the methods of analysis and comparison of technical and macroeconomic indicators. The work is divided into four chapters. The first chapter describes the OPEC Fund for International Development and explains the methods of granting loans by this organization. The second chapter presents four energy projects in African countries, to which the organization provided loans. These are projects in Sudan, Sierra Leone, Egypt and Djibouti. The third chapter examines the impact of these projects on the economies of these countries after their completion. The fourth chapter first assesses the impacts of individual projects and compares them with each other. At the conclusion of this chapter are given recommendations for effective lending to the energy sector in selected African countries.

One of the central issues in international macroeconomics is relative price movements and their sources. One such price is the price of crude oil. An increase in oil price leads to a transfer of income from importing to exporting countries through a shift in terms of trade. The general mechanism by which oil prices affect the economic performance is well under-stood. However, the dynamics of these effects – especially the adjustment to the terms of trade – are uncertain. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of an increase in oil price on the terms of trade during the time period 1970 to 2004. The relationship between oil price and world business cycle as well as the relationship between oil price, GWP and Saudi Arabia’s export is also examined in this paper. The regression results show that an increase in oil price has a negative impact on terms of trade for the net importing country. Whether an increase in oil price has a positive or no effect at all on terms of trade for the net exporting country cannot be told form the regres-sion results.

<p>One of the central issues in international macroeconomics is relative price movements and their sources. One such price is the price of crude oil. An increase in oil price leads to a transfer of income from importing to exporting countries through a shift in terms of trade. The general mechanism by which oil prices affect the economic performance is well under-stood. However, the dynamics of these effects – especially the adjustment to the terms of trade – are uncertain.</p><p>The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of an increase in oil price on the terms of trade during the time period 1970 to 2004. The relationship between oil price and world business cycle as well as the relationship between oil price, GWP and Saudi Arabia’s export is also examined in this paper.</p><p>The regression results show that an increase in oil price has a negative impact on terms of trade for the net importing country. Whether an increase in oil price has a positive or no effect at all on terms of trade for the net exporting country cannot be told form the regres-sion results.</p>

The topic of the final thesis is the impact of oil on economic and political stability of petro-states. The first chapter summarizes basic data about oil, its reserves, production and consumption, as well as about oil trade and oil prices. Basic information about OPEC is included in this chapter.The second chapter includes different theories about effects of oil wealth on economic, political and social development in petro-states. The third chapter is an attempt to apply theories from chapter two on OPEC countries. The aim of the thesis is to present impacts of oil on OPEC countries.

This thesis assesses and describes two main current trends appearing at the crude oil market, specifically re-entry of Iran back to the crude oil market after termination of economic sanctions and current oil glut. First part of this thesis is devoted to the crude oil as resource, it focuses mainly on the history, formation and mining of crude oil. Second part of this thesis focuses on the international trade with crude oil. It analyses data regarding reserves, production, consumption, export and import of crude oil, as well as it describes the OPEC organization. Third part is devoted to the organization of the market with crude oil and describes three main motives of entering to the crude oil market. There are analyzed current trends on the crude oil market in the last part of this thesis.

Conflict in Libya was the most serious of a series of uprising at the beginning of the year 2011 in the Middle East and North Africa. Following the current situation of world production and consumption of oil, the work focuses on the reaction of oil markets to the conflict and estimates the future development of the oil industry. The aim is to analyze how much the Libyan Civil War influences the development of oil prices on world markets. The second main point of this work is to determine to what extent the current situation in the country could damage the Libyan economy. Much of the information comes from documents and statistics of the U. S. Energy Information Administration, the International Energy Agency and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Hur skolans utomhusmiljö är utformad varierar från skola till skola vilket gör att elevernas lekkommer har olika förutsättningar. Dessutom kan lärarens synsätt ha en påverkan på hur eleverna förhåller sig till miljön och leken. Examensarbetet undersöker hur lärare arbetar medutomhusmiljön samt hur deras arbete påverkar elevernas lek. Studien använder sig av intervjueroch observationer, med analysschemat outdoor play environment categorys (OPEC), för att undersöka frågeställningarna: Hur upplever lärarna att utomhusmiljön och material påverkans lek?; Hur påverkar lärarens synsätt och förhållningssätt hur eleverna förhåller sig tillutemiljön och leken?; Vilka metoder och verktyg använder lärare sig av för att vara möjligheter och motverka hindra i utomhusmiljön, material och leken? Detbarndomssociologiska perspektivet användes för att forma studier, där begreppen varandeindivider och blivande vuxna visade sig återkommande i informanternas berättelser. För att förstå informanternas berättelser angående elevernas lek utomhus används rumsteori och begreppet tolkningsreproduktion. Resultatet visar att det finns en koppling mellan platsen och hur eleverna leker, men även att lärarnas förhållningssätt har påverkats på elevernas lek. Detframkom att eleverna drog sig till undanskymda platser, bland annat i buskar och bakom träd, föratt leka rollkar. Det visade även sig att lärarnas synsätt gjorde det möjligt att skapa nya rumutomhus, bland annat genom att ta ut inomhusmaterial eller att hålla i lärarledda aktiviteter på platser.

This thesis focuses on the relationship between the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) economies and global climate change mitigation policies with a view to determining the energy exports demand security risks of OPEC member states. The successful implementation of a universally adopted climate regime has been marred with controversies as different interest groups have raised their concerns about all the options presented so far. OPEC as the major crude oil exporting group in the world has been in the forefront of these debates and negotiations. OPEC’s major concern is the envisaged adverse impacts of the industrialised countries carbon reductions on its members' economies. Several studies have shown that when industrialised countries adopt carbon dioxide emissions reduction policies in line with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, such as carbon taxes and energy efficiency strategies, OPEC’s net price of crude oil decreases at the same time as a reduction in the quantity of crude oil products sold. OPEC believes that such climate change policy-induced fall in crude oil exports revenues would have a significant negative effect on its members' economies. With the limitations related to the assumptions of the existing energy economy models on the impacts of climate change mitigation policies on OPEC’s economies (Barnett et al, 2004), this study opts for a risk based model. This model quantifies the energy exports demand security risks of OPEC members with special interest on crude oil. This study also investigates the effects of carbon reduction policies on crude oil prices vis-à-vis the impacts of crude oil prices on OPEC’s economies. To address these three main issues, this thesis adopts a three-prong approach. The first paper addresses the impacts of climate change mitigation on crude oil prices using a dynamic panel model. Results from the estimated dynamic panel model show that the relationship between crude oil prices and climate change mitigation is positive. The results also indicate that a 1% change in carbon intensity causes a 1.6% and 8.4% changes in crude oil prices in the short run and long run, respectively. The second paper focuses on the impacts of crude oil prices on OPEC economies using a panel vector auto regression (VAR) approach, highlighting the exposure of OPEC members to the volatile crude oil prices. The findings from the panel VAR model show that the relationship between OPEC members’ economic growth and crude oil prices is positive and economic growth in OPEC member states respond positively and significantly to a 10% deviation in crude oil prices by 1.4% in the short run and 1.7% in the long run. The third paper creates an index of the risks OPEC members face when there is a decline in the demand for their crude oil exports. To show these risks, this study develops two indexes to show the country level risks and the contributions to the OPEC-wide risks exposure. The results from the indexes show that OPEC members that are more dependent on crude oil exports are faced with more energy exports demand risks. The findings from this thesis are relevant for the development of a new OPEC energy policy that should accommodate the realities of a sustainable global climate regime. They are also useful to the respective governments of the countries that are members of OPEC and non-OPEC crude oil exporting countries. Finally, the outcomes of this thesis also contribute to the climate change and energy economics literature, especially for academic and subsequent research purposes.

The first chapter of this dissertation estimates the relative contributions of two major exchanges on crude oil futures to the price discovery process-- Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), using trade-by-trade data in 2008. The study also empirically analyzes the effects of trading characteristics on the information share of these two markets. Trading characteristics examined in the study include trading volume, trade size, and trading costs. On average, CME is characterized by greater volume and trade size but also slightly greater bid-ask spread. CME leads the process of price discovery and this leadership is caused by relative trade size and volatility before the financial crisis of 2008; however post-crisis period this leadership is caused by trading volume. Moreover, this study presents evidence that, in times of large uncertainty in the market, the market maker charges a greater bid-ask spread for the more informative market. The second chapter examines the influence of expected oil price volatility, the behavior of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and the US Dollar exchange rate volatility on the backwardation of crude oil futures during the period from January 1986 to December 2008. The results indicate that oil futures are strongly and weakly backwardated 57% and 69% of the time, respectively. The regression analysis of weak backwardation shows that oil volatility, OPEC overproduction (difference between quota and the actual production), and the volatility of the US Dollar against the Japanese Yen have a positive significant effect on oil backwardation, while OPEC production quota imposed on its members has a negative significant effect on oil backwardation. However the volatility of US Dollar against the British Pound has no significant effect on oil backwardation. The regression analysis of strong backwardation produces qualitatively the same results except that volatility has no effect. In a sub-period analysis, evidence also indicates that trading volume of oil funds and backwardation are negatively related, suggesting that oil funds increase the demand of futures relative to that of spot.