Abstract This is unique study of import is of the greatest importance, since no studies of import across regions have earlier been performed. Import is a driving force of innovations and therefore most important for a stable growth. This master thesis is about interregional import, as well as the strong spatial concentration of imports in the Swedish system of network. Five hypothesises are presented in the last section of chapter two. The variables to be used in the analysis are then divided into two main groups, before empirically tested in different combinations of regression models. The main conclusion of this thesis is a significant correlation between import, and the two independent variables export and firm R&D, and its result goes in line with the theoretical framework of this thesis, regional specialisation in import and export nodes.

<p>Abstract</p><p>This is unique study of import is of the greatest importance, since no studies of import</p><p>across regions have earlier been performed. Import is a driving force of innovations and</p><p>therefore most important for a stable growth. This master thesis is about interregional import,</p><p>as well as the strong spatial concentration of imports in the Swedish system of network.</p><p>Five hypothesises are presented in the last section of chapter two. The variables to be used</p><p>in the analysis are then divided into two main groups, before empirically tested in different</p><p>combinations of regression models.</p><p>The main conclusion of this thesis is a significant correlation between import, and the two</p><p>independent variables export and firm R&D, and its result goes in line with the theoretical</p><p>framework of this thesis, regional specialisation in import and export nodes.</p>

The study addresses the outward cross-border linking of the Swedish economy and its most important transnational corporations during the 20th century. It explores the aggregate level of Swedish industry, and most importantly, the firm level of a group of eight long-standing transnational corporations, which during the post-1945 period represented roughly half of Sweden’s foreign industrial activity in terms of employment, e.g., Alfa Laval, ASEA, Ericsson, Sandvik, SKF, AGA, Electrolux and Atlas Copco. Since most of these corporations existed already a century ago it was possible to explore their historical trajectories within the general process of globalization. Hence, the study contributes to the testing of the globalization thesis with a small, open, developed economy as the point of reference. Based on aggregate national data and data on levels of foreign activity of Swedish transnational corporations the study presents a phase model of globalization, identifying first an ‘initial phase’ of globalization from ca 1871 to 1929, second a ‘stagnation phase’ (1930-1949), then a third ‘expansion phase’ (1950-1979) and finally, a ‘highlight of globalization’ phase, beginning in 1980 and continuing into the 21st century. In order to gain deeper insights into the historical process of Sweden’s outward economic linking it then looked in more detail at the eight firms mentioned above. Employing a quantitative formal model of foreign corporate activity, the study focusses on changes in the relative magnitude of foreign employment and sales (‘intensity’) and on the geographical distribution of foreign subsidiaries (‘extensity’). The two former categories are combined into an ‘index of transnationality’, which serves as a principal analytical tool for uncovering long-term change. The study concludes that for Swedish industry and its largest transnational corporations the term globalization represents more of a historical, continuous long-term trend than an exclusively contemporary development. In fact, the only period in time when we see a general stagnation in the positive trends was 1930-1945. Moreover, the study found at least two periods of rapid outward linking on the part of some of the most important Swedish corporations, apart from the current one, that is, the decade and a half preceding World War I and the 1960s. Nevertheless, levels of relative magnitude of activity abroad and of geographical spread attained by Swedish industry and its transnational corporations during the last two decades, were in many respects unprecedented. Findings on the variations in the actual pace of globalization during the whole 20th century demonstrated firstly, that positive change in geographical spread of the group of long-standing transnational corporations proceeded at an increasing pace when calculated in absolute terms. For the 1960-1999 period, the existence of positive long-term trends in the magnitude of both foreign sales and foreign employment were discovered. Also, there was an acceleration of the pace at which foreign sales increased over time, when calculated in absolute terms.

Economic growth is the increase in the inflation-adjusted market value of the goods and services produced by an economy over time. The total output is the quantity of goods or servicesproduced in a given time period within a country. Sweden was affected by two crises during the period 2000-2010: a dot-com bubble and a financial crisis. How did these two crises affect the economic growth?     The changes of domestic output can be separated into four parts: changes in intermediate demand, final domestic demand, export demand and import substitution. The main purpose of this article is to analyze the economic growth during the period 2000-2010, with focus on the dot-com bubble in the beginning of the period 2000-2005, and the financial crisis at the end of the period 2005-2010. The methodology to be used is the structural decomposition method.     This investigation shows that the main contributions to the Swedish total domestic output increase in both the period 2000-2005 and the period 2005-2010 were the effect of domestic demand. In the period 2005-2010, financial crisis weakened the effect of export. The output of the primary sector went from a negative change into a positive, explained mainly by strong export expansion. In the secondary sector, export had most effect in the period 2000-2005. Nevertheless, domestic demand and import ratio had more effect during the financial crisis period. Lastly, in the tertiary sector, domestic demand can mainly explain the output growth in the whole period 2000-2010.

The topic of this essay is whether the private owned ammunition factory Norma Projectile AB was a part of a war economy system from 1938 to 1943. This is done by analyzing specific documents from the company´s archives that expose the connection with Swedish authorities. The selection and analysis of these documents are based on four main criteria’s of the concept war economy. These criteria’s are based on Ivan T. Berends texts about war economy. The results show that the factory to some extent was a part of a war economy based on these four criteria’s. However, the answer to the questions is a bit more nuanced. By nuanced I’m referring to the company’s independence towards the state. By the end of this essay there is a more detailed discussion on this subject.

This thesis investigates the emergence and establishment of an early public monitoring system of the Swedish economy prior to the First World War. The study relies on a careful examination of the source materials with the view to map why and how the monitoring of the Swedish economy emerged, who demanded it, how the public supervision of the economy was organised and administrated and the results of the efforts. The common driving force was an increasing political interest in Sweden and elsewhere over the labour issue towards the end of the nineteenth century. In fact, the establishment of the monitoring system of the Swedish economy was largely the result of a broader international statistical respons to the labour question by the end of that century. The emergence of a public monitoring of the economy was driven by a general need for measuring the effect of industrialisation on the labour market, especially the growing problems with episodes of involuntary unemployment in the industrialised countries towards the end of the century. The thesis is divided in two parts with a total of ten chapters. It is written within a traditional narrative structure, that is, the beginning, the middle and the end. The first part examines the emergence of the surveillance of the labour market and consists of three chapters according to the narrative structure covering the period 1893-1913. The second part consists of three chapters that investigate the establishment of a monthly economic survey of the Swedish economy between 1910 and 1914, structured in the same way as the part one. The establishment of this early public monitoring of the Swedish economy should be regarded as a forerunner of the National Institute of Economic Research (Konjunkturinstitutet) 1937.