Happiness is a well-researched and complex field of science. The complexity creates results that are diverse from study to study. Macro-economic variables such as income inequality, inflation and unemployment are frequently occurring. Because studies in happiness are diverse in their conclusions, we hypothesise that time-series regressions on separate western European countries will create different results. In order to find out if same macroeconomic variables affect nations average happiness differently. We created time-series regressions with robust standard errors between 1983-2020 for Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium, and France separately. Using initially mentioned variables in order to determine their effects on average happiness, taken from Veenhoven´s World Database of Happiness, our results were as diverse as previous research. The only variable that displayed consensus in its effect was inflation. Income inequality (GINI) and unemployment rate depicts all possible hypothesis, negative, positive, and no correlation depending on nation. This indicates that every country might react differently and perhaps should not be bundled together and generalized. Future research needs to be conducted in similar manner as the time-series data increases, and to further analyze if happiness is a practical and nation-comparable measure of welfare.

Waste disposal has always been one of the challenging aspects of human life mostly in populated areas. In every urban region, various factors can impact both amount and composition of the generated waste, and these factors might depend on a series of parameters. Therefore, developing a predictive model for waste generation has always been challenging. We believe that one main problem that city planners and policymakers face is a lack of an accurate yet easy-to-use predictive model for the waste production of a given municipality. It would be vital for them, especially during business downturns, to access a reliable predictive model that can be employed in planning resources and allocating budget. However, most developed models are complicated and extensive. The objective of this research is to study the trend of solid waste generation in Philadelphia with respect to business cycle indicators, population growth, current policies and environmental awareness, and to develop a satisfactory predictive model for waste generation. Three predictive models were developed using time series analysis, stationary and nonstationary multiple linear regressions. The nonstationary OLS model was just used for comparison purposes and does not have any modeling value. Among the other two developed predictive models, the multiple linear regression model with stationary variables yielded the most accurate predictions for both total and municipal solid waste generation of Philadelphia. Despite its unsatisfactory statistics (R-square, p-value, and F-value), stationary OLS model could predict Philadelphia’s waste generation with a low level of approximately 9% error. Although time series modeling demonstrated a less successful prediction comparing to the stationary OLS model (25% error for total solid waste, and 10.7% error for municipal waste predictions), it would be a more reliable method based on its model statistics. The common variable used in all three developed models which made our modeling different from the Streets Department’s estimations was unemployment rate. Including an economic factor such as unemployment rate in modeling the waste generation could be helpful especially during economic downturns, in which economic factors can dominate the effects of population growth on waste generation. A prediction of waste generation may not only help waste management sector in landfill and waste-to-energy facilities planning but it also provides the basis for a good estimation of its future environmental impacts. In future, we are hoping to predict related environmental trends such as greenhouse gas emissions using our predictive model. / Environmental Engineering

According to the numerical data from the past three decades, income inequality remains a significant challenge on a global scale, irrespective of the countries’ development status. Even though the global economy has experienced growth, income inequalities have not decreased correspondingly. Global integration, international commerce, economic expansions, and changes in labor market dynamics all together participate in the process of shaping economic inequalities. The thesis investigates the impact of various macroeconomic indicators on income inequality and attempts to identify evidence for the bell-shaped Kuznets curve. Fixed- and random-effects models are utilized for the analysis, in which balanced panel data from 52 high- and middle-income countries covering the period 1998 through 2020 are considered. The results of our study identify a U-turned relationship between GDP per capita and income inequality, which does not support the Kuznets hypothesis. Furthermore, we also identified that higher average educational levels reduce income inequality, while international commerce and higher unemployment rates increase it.

The positive contributions of entrepreneurship towards the economic development were already proved by the previous researchers. The main aim of this study was to analyse the determinants of entrepreneurial activity in the Nordic countries over the period of years 2004‑2013 to provide the supportive empirical analysis for the Nordic entrepreneurial policy makers. Data were obtained from the various databases and were formed into the panel dataset. Entrepreneurial activity was quantified by the two variables, rate of registered business activity and established business ownership rate. For each entrepreneurial activity, acting as the dependent variable, was estimated the set of econometric models following the econometric approach with the Fixed Effects Estimator. The results obtained for the both dependent variables did not substantially differ from each other and were generally in agreement with the results obtained by the previous scholars. The hypothesis stating the positive relationship between unemployment rate, GDP per capita and entrepreneurial activity, during the analysed period, were accepted. Also the negative impact of administrative barriers on entrepreneurial activity was confirmed. However, no statistically significant empirical support was obtained for the hypothesis assuming the positive relationship between R&D sector and entrepreneurial activity.

Finanskrisens inträde i mitten av 2008 utsattes Sveriges ekonomi för kraftiga påfrestningar. BNP-tillväxten mattades av och vi har till och med sett en negativ tillväxt för första gången sedan krisen i 90-talets början. Samtidigt har både hushållens konsumtion och näringslivets produktion rasat vilket har bidragit till kännbara effekter och en osäker tid för båda parter. Till en följd av detta har många företag tvingats avveckla sin verksamhet helt medan andra fått se över sina kostnader. Detta har i sin tur bidragit till att arbetslösheten ökat med cirka tre procentenheter mellan 2008 och 2010. En konsekvens av detta kan tänkas vara att brottsligheten påverkas. Vi har med hjälp av den statistiska metoden multipel regressionsanalys undersökt om, och i sådana fall hur våldsbrott samt stöld-, rån- och häleribrott påverkas när arbetslösheten förändras. Detta har utförts i två olika modeller, en för varje brottskategori, VB-modellen som behandlar våldsbrott och SB-modellen som innehåller stöld-, rån- och häleribrott. Då det även kan finnas andra variabler som påverkar brottsligheten har vi tagit med ytterligare åtta stycken i vår regression. Dataunderlaget är hämtat SCB, BRÅ och AMS hemsidor och avser samtliga Sveriges kommuner under åren 1996 till 2008. Resultatet av regressionen i VB-modellen visade att, om arbetslösheten ökar med en procentenhet så kommer antalet anmälda våldsbrott att minska med 0,019 brott per 1 000 invånare. När man sedan analyserar resultatet i SB-modellen ser vi att antalet stöld-, rån- och häleribrott per 1 000 invånare ökar med 4,216 om arbetslösheten ökar med en procentenhet. / The financial crisis in the middle of 2008 pushed the Swedish economy to its limits. GDP growth decreased and for the first time since the 1990 crisis, there was a negative growth in GDP. At the same time household expenditure and industrial production fell and lead to noticeable effects and uncertain times for both parties. As a consequence of this many companies have gone out of business. This has contributed to an increase in the unemployment rate with three percentage points between 2008 and 2010. A possible consequence of this could be an increasing crime rate. With the statistical method, multiple regression analysis, we have studied if there is a relationship between crime and unemployment. This has been done with two different models, the VB-model that includes assault crimes and the SB-model that includes property related crimes. Because there are more variables that can affect the crime rate, we include eight more variables in our equation. The data has been collected from SCB (Statistiska Centralbyrån), BRÅ (Brottsförebyggande Rådet) and AMS (Arbetsförmedlingen) webpage’s and concerns all municipalities in Sweden during 1996 to 2008. The result from the regression analysis shows, in the VB-model, if the unemployment increases with one percentage point, the number of reported assault crimes decreases with 0.019 crimes per 1000 residents. The result for the SB-model is that if the unemployment rate increases with one percentage point the number of reported property related crimes would increase with 4.216 crimes per 1000 residents.

This diploma thesis focuses on the topic of regional unemployment in the Czech Republic during the economic crisis of 2008 - 2011. Briefly describes the evolution and causes of unemployment in this period at the regional level of ORP and looks closer at the labor market in one of the most affected regions in these times of crisis. Key words: economic crisis, regional disparities, unemployment, unemployment rate, Czech Republic

Unemployment is a matter affecting the life and position in society each of us. The unemployment rate is a widely used indicator of the maturity economies of states and their regions. In connection with the lingering economic crisis, the unemployment problem has become a widely discussed issue, in particular the differences in unemployment rates across regions of countries. This diploma thesis focuses on the topic of regional unemployment in the Czech Republic during the economic crisis of 2008 - 2011, and aims to gain insight into the evolution of the unemployment rate in the most affected region of the Czech Republic in these times of crisis.

Retraining represents one of the most used instruments of the active employment policy. It can be used as instrument for solving individual handicaps to employability in the supply-side of labor market, or as an instrument, that responds to current market requirements. The purpose of this study is to assess how this instrument is used in conditions of local labor market in Trutnov. Specifically, it is evaluated the status of retraining among other instruments of active employment policy, is described the structure of realized retraining and is analysed the targeting of retraining. This study aslo suggests, how to evaluate the effectiveness of retraining, which has been realised. The conclusion summarizes the results of the analysis and evaluate the use of retraining by Employment agency in Trutnov.

Unemployment rate is all time low in Europe and this results in shortage of skilled workers. At same time technology changes are on their boom which puts new requirements of skills including diversifying competencies. The companies like consultancy faces issues to find right people with right skills and at right time. This unavailability of resources impacts the strategic goal of company. Smaller companies need to compete with mid-size and large companies over the same skilled workforce. Due to the lack of branding and company recognition, this can cripple the companies to grow and gather a completive advantage. Previous work has failed to address this issue, especially related to the smaller IT consultancies which is the fastest growing segment. The 99% of all business in Europe represents by small or medium size companies. IT consultancy companies represented the most growing and major contributor in value creation in information and communication sector in Europe. Therefore, the main purpose of this study was to answer in what way the low unemployment rate affects the strategical process and execution for small IT consultancy companies. Furthermore, this study looked into the role of recruitment process to attract and retain skilled employees. A qualitative approach combined with semi-structured interviews was used as the main methodology to gather empirical data and answer the key problems of this study. The semi-structured interviews were chosen due to the possibility to give the interviewers a freedom to speak and explain moderately, especially strategy processes, which are different from one company to other ones. This study found that small IT consultancy companies had little or no formal structure in the strategical processes in relation to the literature available in the topic, but still highlighted and expressed that strategy is important for the companies. Although if small IT companies want to grow, they must rethink the organizational structure. All studied companies are providing high salaries, freedom of work, technology learning, and job satisfaction as a key tool to attract talent. All companies in general asked the most critical questions on how to grow their business with the basis of their own limitations. Unfortunately, none of the companies reviewed and monitored their objectives on frequent and regular basis.  This study found that the low unemployment rate plays a critical role which can increase the profit margin, but cannot increase the number of employees and potentially minimize the importance of the strategical process. The study also found that low unemployment rate creates a healthy competitive environment where all large and small consultancy companies enables each other to grow instead of competing.

The main objective of this research paper is to find the association between unemployment rate and GDP growth which is presented empirically by Arthur Okun’s in early 1960s. For this purpose I have used annual time series data during the period 1981-2005 of Pakistan. I applied difference version of Okun’s law which is more appropriate to access results directly from empirical data. In order to find long run relation between the variables I used Engle-Granger cointegration technique and Error Correction Mechanism (ECM) to find the short term behavior of GDP growth to its long run value. This paper verifies negative relationship between unemployment rate and GDP growth and both variables have long run relation with each other. Moreover GDP growth will adjust more quickly towards equilibrium in the long run.