The availability and quality of housing is very closely related to the development in the building industry and to the economic opportunities in the given state. This thesis deals with the relationship between tax policy and new housing construction. Taking influence on the building industry through tax policies - that is to say, through indirect instruments - is particularly advantageous thanks to the low administrative overhead, as no further redistribution from public budgets is necessary. Hiding behind this advantage, though, are a number of difficult-to-estimate quantifications in the form of tax allowances or, conversely, of the amount of the tax burden. Indirect instruments can influence residential development activities in both positive and negative ways, and this thesis addresses both. Aside from tax instruments, the state may support new housing construction through direct instruments, a term which covers various forms of loans at preferential terms, grants and subsidies. The aim of this thesis is to test the hypothesis about the effectiveness of housing policy in terms of housing construction through direct and indirect instruments.

A prática de Avaliação de Impacto (AI) mostra-se consolidada como elemento de suporte ao processo decisório ao redor do planeta. No entanto, apresenta uma série de limitações relacionadas à inclusão dos impactos sociais e efeitos cumulativos como objeto de análise, que se mostram mais intensas no contexto da implantação de grandes projetos de desenvolvimento. No Estado de São Paulo, a região do Litoral Norte se destaca pela perspectiva de intensificação dos processos de desenvolvimento econômico a partir da implantação de projetos ligados à exploração de óleo e gás e seus empreendimentos derivados. Ainda que as mudanças de caráter socioambiental venham sendo analisadas em estudos ambientais estratégicos e estudos de impactos ambientais de projetos, planos diretores municipais, dentre outros instrumentos, verifica-se uma lacuna em termos de seus aspectos cumulativos que, associada ao baixo grau de integração entre os instrumentos de planejamento aplicados na região, tem limitado a sua capacidade de influenciar as decisões tomadas. Nesse contexto, a presente pesquisa se utiliza de métodos de Avaliação de Impactos para a verificação de impactos sociais e seus efeitos cumulativos sobre o Litoral Norte paulista, considerando a implantação de projetos já em andamento e sua compatibilização com os cenários de desenvolvimento esperados para a região. De modo específico, foram aplicados os métodos da Rede de Impactos para identificação da relação de causalidade entre impactos sociais diretos e indiretos e verificação de sua cumulatividade, e da Sobreposição de Mapas para agregação de dados geográficos e visualização de sua distribuição espacial. A metodologia adotada favoreceu a identificação de impactos sociais indiretos, assim como a compreensão de sua cumulatividade sobre diferentes receptores e também sobre a área de estudo, mostrando-se útil para a inserção da dimensão social na AI voltada para grandes projetos de desenvolvimento. / Impact Assessment (IA) practice has different inadequacies, especially about identification and assessment of social impacts and cumulative effects. Hence, there is the demand of exploring methods for minding this gap, mainly in the context of impacts derived from large development projects in Brazil. The North Coast of São Paulo was used a case study, as the region was announced to receive different development projects related to oil and gas exploitation and logistic for exportation. There are many socioenvironmental changes predicted by different instruments such as Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) of projects, Master Plans, among others. This research aimed to verify the contributions of the use of Impact Network and Map Overlaying to consider the social dimension in Impact Assessment. The Impact Network method allowed to address the causality of direct and indirect social impacts, linking them to different receptors for comprehending its cumulativeness. The Map Overlaying method added spatial data from different sources, allowing to identify current and expected social impacts and its spatial and temporal cumulativeness. The main results are: identification of indirect social impacts, comprehension of cumulative social impacts in different receptors and the identification of spatial cumulativeness now and considering the planning future scenario. These methods are currently poorly applied and were important to deal with social impacts and cumulative effects. In the end, it was concluded that the approach contributed to better consider the social dimension in Impact Assessment of large projects.

The fashion industry is not only known for its creativity and innovation, but also for its contribution to environmental pollution, climate change as well as for social imbalances and poverty. Ecological and societal standards have so far only played a minor role in this industry for production and distribution as well as for consumers for their consumption and disposal behaviour. However, in order to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals and prevent the maximum damage caused by pollution and exploitation, it is necessary to act more rapidly and consistently. Governmental control instruments can help to address those responsible, to regulate the market and to encourage improvements towards a more sustainable economy. The aim of this work is to develop a feasible governmental control instrument for the textile sector in order to provide possible solutions for some of the existing problems. Three different cases of already implemented policies in the food sector will be analysed and evaluated in order to detect the best-case policy with regard to sustainability as a basis for a derivation. The findings of the derived outcome will then be examined by experts in order to validate it. Finally, a recommendation summarises the findings of the literature review, the transfer of knowledge as well as the expert assessments. The result of this research paper is a control instrument derived from the food industry, which was evaluated with the help of expert interviews and has the potential to make the textile market more sustainable in the long term.

To remedy the negative effects of wetland drainage activities that took place in Sweden during the 1800s, measures to create, restore and recreate wetlands have gained increased attention as nature-based solutions. While wetlands provide cost-effective long-term solutions and co-benefits that help achieve national and international environmental objectives, targets relating to wetland measures have fallen short. The study aim was to investigate drivers, policy influence and barriers to wetland implementation on the local level and to discuss potential success parameters. Local stakeholder experiences were collected using survey design with open, closed, and partially close-ended questions, analysed with thematic analysis. The findings identified drivers relating to ecological and social benefits, climate change, and multifunctionality- and indicated that policy objectives on the national level influence drivers on the local level. Furthermore, barriers towards wetland implementation were identified, fuelled by a lack of communication, policies that rely on one-size-fits-all approaches, and a lack of resources for administration. Potential success parameters to address the barriers include improved collaboration between and within wetland projects, financial incentives for landowners and administration, maintenance plans, systems for follow-up outside of the policy instruments, and increased flexibility for wetland projects that take into account the natural variability of wetlands. The findings can lay the foundation for further research exploring more in-depth the identified barriers and success parameters to help set new policy directives and suggestions for how wetland measures could be implemented at a larger scale in the future.

Use of the monetary instruments of the Czech National Bank Abstract The aim of the thesis is to chronologically analyze the use of the monetary instruments of the Czech National Bank with emphasis on the issue of changing the primary objective of our central bank in the legislation order and answer the question whether there was a change in the use of the monetary instruments of the CNB or not. The thesis uses mainly descriptive method, analytical method, and comparative method. The sources of this thesis are mainly professional economic publications (professional articles, textbooks), legal regulations, including the case law of the Constitutional Court, and freely available data listed on the website of the CNB or the website of the Czech Statistical Office. The first chapter of my thesis defines the term "Monetary Policy". It theoretically analyses the basic types of the monetary policy and functions. This includes the processes that lead from the use of the monetary instruments to influence the economy. The emphasis here is mainly on explaining the term "inflation targeting" and its use. The second chapter presents the monetary instruments that central banks can use in their monetary policy. The chapter divides monetary instruments into direct and indirect and conventional and unconventional. The third...

Dans de nombreux états providences, les systèmes de santé subissent de nos jours d’importantes transformations en réponse aux pressions budgétaires et caractérisées par le rôle croissant du marché et des mesures de rationalisation. C’est dans ce contexte que la France et l’Allemagne ont mis en place des programmes de Disease Management (DM) dans le but de fournir des soins plus structurés et de paiement à la performance (P4P) pour inciter financièrement les fournisseurs à répondre à certains objectifs.Ces réformes, qui reflètent le rôle croissant de l’État dans les deux systèmes d’assurance maladie, se sont inspirées des modèles anglo-saxons mais se concrétisent de manière distincte en fonction des caractéristiques des systèmes des deux pays. En Allemagne, DM et P4P se sont basés sur la concurrence croissante entre les caisses d’assurance maladies et entre les hôpitaux tandis qu’en France, ces réformes ont reflété un changement du rôle de l’assurance maladie « de payeur à acteur ».Le positionnement de la profession médicale vis-à-vis de ces nouveaux instruments de gouvernance, qui sont de nature hiérarchique et qui imposent une logique comptable, est une question clef en France et en Allemagne. Dans les deux pays, les processus de négociations ont été lié à un écart grandissant entre les représentants des médecins et leurs membres, et ce malgré les différences dans la manière dont les médecins sont traditionnellement intégrés dans la régulation des systèmes de santé respectifs. / Health systems in many welfare states are undergoing important transformations, triggered by increasing budgetary pressures and characterized by the growing role of market and rationalization measures. In this context, France and Germany have introduced disease management (DM) programs to deliver more structured patient care and pay-for-performance (P4P) measures to provide financial incentives for providers meeting certain objectives.These reforms, which reflect the increasing role of the State in both statutory health insurance systems, were inspired by Anglo-Saxon models but translated in distinct ways, owing to differences in the two countries’ systems. In Germany, DM and P4P were based on increasing competition between sickness funds and between hospitals, while in France these reforms reflected a shift by its central insurance system “from payer to player”.The positioning of the medical profession vis-a-vis these new instruments of governance, which are hierarchical in nature and impose stronger public accountability, was a key issue in both France and Germany. The negotiation processes were accompanied by a growing disconnect between physician representatives and their memberships in both countries, despite significant differences in the way physicians are traditionally integrated into health system regulation.

This qualitative study explores how crisis preparedness practitioners in Sweden perceive theAgreement on Municipalities' Crisis Preparedness and how the municipalities haveimplemented what is stated in the Agreement on Municipalities' Crisis Preparedness. Drawingon theories about soft governance and policy instruments this has allowed the study to explorehow the agreement might be viewed by those working with it in relation what the theories hasto say. This has been done through performing semi-structured interviews with seven crisispreparedness practitioners at seven different municipalities spread across Sweden. For thisstudy a thematic analysis was performed on the material, based on the interview guide and theindicators, Perception, and Implementation. The result of this study is that agreement is constructed in a way to give freedom to thoseworking with crisis preparedness and is seen as soft by practitioners, which means that theagreement as such can largely be seen as soft governance. However, some practitionersexpressed the notion that they would have liked to see clearer and stricter governmentalsteering. That it could be viewed as soft means that the agreement could potentially takeadvantage of the benefits to using a soft approach, or this would be the case if the studywasn’t able to show that there exist, a problem with crisis preparedness. This problem is thatthere is not enough money to do more than is necessary regarding crisis preparedness. Whythis is could be questioned as the municipalities have taxation rights and it could as such beinteresting to delve deeper into why this is in a future study.

With environmental concerns and energy needs increasing, many regions in the world are promoting renewable energy technologies making use of various policy instruments. Although today the PV systems price is decreasing, which gives it a competitive edge; we see the technology still being dependent on policy instruments for its dissemination.   The aim of this study is to research on whether or not a solar PV system is economically viable under certain circumstances. The study analyzes this by performing a cost beneficial analysis for the lifetime of the solar PV system making use of a discounted savings model. The systems being considered in this study are from California and Germany as these regions are leading in solar PV dissemination in their respective regions. The policies that are aiding the deployment of solar PV technologies are varied and thus this study compares benefits from different policy instrument for a residential customer investing in a solar PV system.   The research objectives in this study are pursued making use of major concepts such as Grid Parity, Levelized Cost of Electricity and financial methods such as discounting.  Further, to understand how the different independent variables such as retail electricity prices, PV system pricing, WACC, self-consumption rate and storage availability are having an impact and how the results change with variation in these variables, a sensitivity analysis is conducted.   The results obtained in this study show that a solar PV system installed in California and Germany both make net benefits over their lifetime. When compared, the Californian solar PV system under the Net Energy Metering policy is making more net economic benefits in the range of $ 40,351 in Eureka and $53,510 in San Francisco; when compared to the German solar PV systems under the Feed in Tariff ranging $4,465 in Berlin and $11,769 in Munich. Furthermore the Californian solar PV systems still prove to be more beneficial even when compared to the German solar PV systems under the self-consumption law of the Feed in Tariff ranging $ 6,443 in Berlin and $ 13,141 in Munich.  But when the self-consumption rate is increased in the German case, it is noted that the associated benefits increase.   The study at hand thus results in the California Net Energy Meter policy instrument proving to be more beneficial to a residential customer than the German Feed in tariff with and without self-consumption. Another important finding made in this study is that despite the German solar PV system making lesser benefits than the Californian ones, they attain Grid Parity before the ones in California.

The present study examines a Mobility Management measure called “test traveller project”, which aims at increasing the public transport modal share by offering free public transport tickets to those who often use their car for their daily commuting and trips. The existing literature consists of a rather limited number of cases and their scope is usually limited because only some of the main elements that influence one’s travel behaviour are considered in each study. Furthermore, literature is not unanimous in concluding that this measure can reduce car use. This work studies more than 50 cases in Sweden, and by employing the Theory of Planned Behaviour the effects of test traveller projects have been examined in an empirical case in the Swedish municipality of Botkyrka, located in the Stockholm metropolitan area. The findings underline that a test traveller project, despite its limitations, may be a valid and relatively simple tool available to public bodies and public transport companies for enticing a segment of car drivers to switch to public transport where it is a valid alternative. In fact, according to the literature, the major results achievable are around 20% of new public transport users among test travellers, whereas in Sweden 20% has been achieved by the first upper quartile of the projects. In particular, the effectiveness of a test traveller project is greater when combined or conducted in parallel with other measures such as improvements in the public transport offer and/or changes in the transport system aiming at disadvantaging car use. The case study of Botkyrka has confirmed that attitudes are the major influencing factor when making the transport mode choice. Further, it has confirmed that environmental concerns and the time passed from one’s residential relocation also play an important role. Habits seem to be less important, thus adhering to that literature whose authors argue that an external event (such as moving home) makes people reflect upon and rethink their travel habits. The case study in Botkyrka has empirically demonstrated how the project participants correct their beliefs and perceptions about public transport, sometimes in a positive way and sometimes in a negative way. An interesting finding is the existence of a new category of people living in the suburbs. Literature indicates that, in the same suburban context, individuals with suburban land use preferences tend to use the car more that individuals with urban land use preferences. In the case study of Botkyrka clearly emerged as a majority among the test traveller project participants a category of individuals who have a suburban land use preference but at the same time would like to use public transportation instead of their car and have high environmental concerns.

This thesis examines digital inclusion and how it is governed in today’s politics. The main focus is on the region of Östergötland, the municipality of Norrköping and a project called Digital media bus in Östergötland. To give the reader some understanding about digital inclusion the thesis starts with earlier research on digital inclusion, the role of the library in solving this problem about digital divides and how it has been governed before. Then, some background information about Europe and Swedens digital development, their digital agendas, current legislation in Sweden about digital inclusion and two campaign weeks which aim to increase the digital inclusion in Europe and Sweden. The theoretical framework is based on a theory about different policy instruments and from a governance perspective. The theoretical framework interacts with the empirical material in the analysis. The empirical material is based on interviews with two politicians and three public officials, on different regulatory documents and on the project Digital media bus in Östergötland which has been observed during the year of 2016. The empirical material is presented in the sixth chapter called ”There are needs, so there must be solutions!”. The result is that digital inclusion is a policy which is hard to govern. Today, it seems like there is mostly soft policy instruments and the way to govern is from a governance perspective – which means that there are a lot of networks and dissemination of information. However, a harder way to govern is requested by the informants because it may release necessary resources to solve the problem with digital exclusion. The project Digital media bus in Östergötland used mostly soft policy instruments in their work with getting children more technical skilled and digital curious. The main outcome from the project is that the problem with digital inclusion has got more attention both in the politics and the official administration, but the project has also shown the importance of cooperation. Lastly in my thesis, I discuss my results and propose some further research about digital inclusion.