During the Late Bronze Age, the number of metal objects in the Baltic Sea region increased tremendously.  Mobility and interaction in this northern inland sea intensified. This occurred in a period of prehistory when the ship was the predominant symbol in southern Scandinavia. The ship can be found in rock carvings, on bronze objects and by way of erected stone monuments: stone ship settings. These stone ships are mainly to be found in the Baltic Sea region, with a marked concentration on Gotland. The stone ship settings and their landscape context are the focus of this dissertation. The objective is to clarify whether it is possible to find evidence of social groupings of people in the Nordic Late Bronze Age (1100-500 BC), by focusing on the stone ship monument, adopting a maritime approach. These people might have been part of a maritime institution specializing in trade and long distance journeys during this period, thus achieving a more advanced maritime way of life in the Baltic Sea. Are the ship settings an expression of these specific groups of people, who utilized their practices to position and articulate themselves in the landscape? If such maritime institutions can in fact be traced, there must also be uniformly structured locations for these groups of people to meet in, some kind of antecedents of harbours. By taking an inland sea, the Baltic Sea, as a geographical demarcation, a different perspective of prehistory is attained. The area in the Late Bronze Age and earliest Iron Age (950/900-200 BC) differed from the Nordic Bronze Age sphere. The communities around the Baltic Sea, through the establishment and sharing of mutual interests, seem to have reached a certain degree of consensus. This concordance might well be largely explained by the complex dependency on metal. Such a manifestation would not have been possible without an infrastructure or network, in this case a maritime one. This is something which has previously been overlooked in discussions on the Bronze Age in the Baltic Sea.

Benthic diatoms are valuable tools for biological monitoring and paleo-ecological reconstruction of past environmental conditions. This thesis aims at describing size-related properties of benthic diatoms and suggests that data assessment for community analysis can be improved by considering the importance of scale. It investigates which environmental factors structure epilithic diatom communities on the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia and identifies environmental factors correlated with phytobenthic biomass. It also contributes to the floristic knowledge of the Baltic Sea. Diatom species show large variation in size. The responses of large species (≥1000 μm3) in diatom communities to environmental factors are underestimated if solely measured as relative abundance, as is the common practice. However, relative abundance gives the best gradient resolution, as compared to surface area and biovolume, if species are counted separately in two biovolume classes. Small and large species in the same community may respond differently to the same environmental factors. To assess the principal environmental factors structuring diatom communities in the Gulf of Bothnia, 270 quantitative samples were collected from submerged stones. Sampling was carried out in spring in four areas of the Bothnian Bay, characterized by a stable north-south salinity gradient (0.4-3.3 psu), and in three areas of the Bothnian Sea which has a rather uniform salinity of ca. 5 psu. Canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) identified salinity and exposure to wave action as the principal factors structuring the diatom communities of the Bothnian Bay, whereas exposure to wave action was the principal factor in the Bothnian Sea. Measurements of relative ignition loss suggested that the cover of macroalgae, and thereby the higher abundance of epiphytic diatoms in the epilithic samples, was positively correlated with salinity in the Bothnian Bay and with water movement in the Bothnian Sea. Two new brackish water species are described, Navicula sjoersii S. Busse & Snoeijs and N. bossvikensis S. Busse & Snoeijs. The new species are compared with N. perminuta Grunow, a common brackish-water species.

Magistro baigiamąjame darbe atlikta Baltijos šalių valstybės skolos ir jos valdymo lyginamoji analizė. Darbą sudaro trys dalys. Pirmoje darbo dalyje apžvelgiami teoriniai valstybės skolos ir jos valdymo aspektai: pateikiamas valstybės skolos klasifikavimas, skolinimosi instrumentai, veiksniai, leimiantys valstybės skolinimosi poreikį, valstybės skolos vertinimo rodikliai, apžvelgiama kokį poveikį šalies ekonomikai daro valstybės skolinimasis, taip pat valstybės skolos valdymo problemos bei kylančios rizikos. Antrojoje darbo dalyje pateikiama Baltjos šalių valstybės skolos analizės, vertinimo bei prognozavimo metodologija. Trečiojoje darbo dalyje atliekama Baltijos šalių ekonominės situacijos, lemiančios valstybės skolinimosi poreikį, analizė. Taip pat analizuojamas Baltijos šalių valstybės skolos dydis, jį lemiantys veiksniai, skolos struktūra, atliekamas valstybės skolos vertinimas pagal santykinius rodiklius bei apžvelgiami skolos valdymo ypatumai. Pritaikant koreliacinę analizę tiriamas Baltijos šalių valstybės skolos ir pasirinktų veiksnių ryšys. Panaudojant daugialypės tiesinės regresijos bei autoregresijos slankiųjų vidurkių metodus, prognozuojama Baltijos šalių valstybės skola 2013 - 2014 metams. Galiausiai pateikiamos išvados ir siūlymai. / The master thesis analyses and compares the government debt of Baltic states and its management. The work consists of three parts. The first part provides theoretical overview of government debt and its management: the classification of the government debt, borrowing instruments, factors, which influence state's borrowing needs, government debt indicators, the link between governmnet debt and economic growth, as well as problems of government debt management and emerging risks. The second part presents the methodology of government debt analysis, evaluation and forecasting. The third part primaliry analyzes economic situation in Baltic states. It also analyzes and compares changes in government debt of Baltic states, the reasons of changes, costs of borrowing, the debt structure, also evaluates government debt in Baltic states by using relative rates of government debt and reviews the main aspects of government debt management. The correlation analysis is used to investigate the relationship between government debt of Baltic states and some selected factors. By using multiple regression model and autoregressive – moving average method, there is forecasting the changes of government debt in Baltic states in period 2013 – 2014. Finally, conclusions are made and recommendations are given.

The four essays included in this dissertation are in the field of open economy Macroeconomics. Essays I, II and IV deal with a work-horse model in this field – a two-sector small open economy growth model with traded and nontraded goods. Writing down such a model requires an assumption about the role of traded and nontraded goods in domestic consumption and investments. While several empirical studies have looked at the consumption side, a systematic examination of the role of traded and nontraded goods in investments is missing. Essay I aims to fill this gap. Drawing on extensive empirical evidence, we show that aggregate investment expenditure shares on traded and nontraded goods are very similar in rich and poor countries. Furthermore, the two expenditure shares have remained close to constant over time, with the average nontraded expenditure share varying between 0.54-0.60 over the 1960-2002 period. Combined with the fact that the relative price of nontraded goods correlates positively with income and exhibits large differences across space and time, our findings suggest that investment can be modeled using the Cobb-Douglas aggregator. The results of this essay offer a new restriction for the two-sector growth model, which can alter the conclusions drawn from the model. To demonstrate this, we apply the new restriction to a study by Hsieh and Klenow (2003), which argues that differences in relative productivity between traded and nontraded sectors, i.e., the Balassa-Samuelson effect, is the main cause of higher PPP-adjusted investment rates in rich countries. With the restriction imposed on the model, no more than 25 percent of the differences in PPP-adjusted investment rates between rich and poor counties can be attributed to the Balassa-Samuelson effect. In Essays II and IV the same two-sector growth model is put to the test using the recent economic developments in countries of Eastern and Central Europe. Essay II investigates whether the two-sector growth model can explain the magnitudes and the timing of the trade flows in the Baltic countries. The model is calibrated for each of the three countries, which we simulate as small closed economies that suddenly open up to international trade and capital flows. The results show that the model can account for the observed magnitudes of the trade deficits in the 1995-2001 period. Introducing a real interest rate risk premium in the model increases its explanatory power. According to the model, trade balances will turn positive in the Baltic states around 2010. Essay IV starts by summarizing empirical regularities for the key aggregate real sector variables in the eight countries that joined the EU in May 2004. It is shown that, following the reforms in the early 1990s, real sector developments in all eight countries exhibit remarkable similarities. Interestingly, this is the case despite the fact that different reform policies were pursued in several dimensions (e.g., privatization, nominal exchange rate). Next, we show that a calibrated two-sector small open economy growth model can account for most of the real sector adjustments in early post-reform years. Empirical studies have found rapid traded sector productivity growth in Central and Eastern European countries over the last decade. When traded sector productivity growth is added to the model, it captures the development in all key real sector variables during the post-reform period. Finally, Essay III contributes to the study of financial crises in emerging markets. In contrast to the other essays, this paper develops a highly stylized theoretical model that allows us to study analytically government response to financial crises. In particular, Essay III develops a framework for analyzing optimal government bailout policy in a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model where financial crises are exogenous. Important elements of the model are that private borrowers internalize only part of the social cost of foreign borrowing in the emerging market and that the private sector is illiquid in the event of a crisis. The distinguishing feature of our paper is that it addresses the optimal bailout policy in an environment where there are both costs and benefits of bailouts, and where bailout guarantees potentially distort investment decisions in the private sector. We show that it is always optimal to commit to a bailout policy that only partially protects investment against inefficient liquidation, both in a centralized economy and a market economy. Due to overinvestment in the market economy, the government's optimal level of bailout guarantees is lower than in the social optimum. Further, we show that, in contrast to a social planner, the government in the market economy should optimally bail out a smaller fraction of private investments when the probability of a crisis is higher. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2005 S. i-x: sammanfattning, s. 1-187: 4 uppsatser

<p>Emerging country markets are becoming increasingly important in the operations of multinational corporations. On May 1, 2004, the EU welcomed 10 new member states, including the three Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. As a result, many western multinational corporations have entered these new emerging markets. These countries have witnessed very fast growth and were lucrative to enter. The term “Baltic Tiger” is used to describe the economic boom of the Baltic States from 2000 to 2007. This term is adequate because during this time period the Baltic States had the highest growth rates in Europe. Swedish companies in particular started coming into the Baltic States in 1989 approximately. These companies were looking for and found low cost production. However, today with rising wages, low cost production is more difficult to find.</p><p>The purpose of our research is to investigate the current conditions and future predictions related to the external environment and high technology industries in the Baltic States. The investigation of the current state and future potential of the markets were analyzed from an institutional standpoint. We compared this to the institutional environment in Sweden and made predictions on the potential changes in these institutions. Given our analysis and evaluation of the most attractive market, we have devised an establishment and matching strategy for the case company. The case analysis is set against the background of a theoretical framework covering current literature over societal and organizational fields in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Our primary and secondary research was examined in the context of well known theoretical models and our own models and upon analysis; we come to a conclusion and make recommendations for companies interested in doing business in the Baltic States. Our research will be useful for companies curious about the potential and necessary considerations they must take in the Baltic markets in general and within the high technology sector specifically.</p>

Submitted by Daniele Santos (danielesantos.htl@gmail.com) on 2017-02-20T20:14:52Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Eivile.pdf: 1355320 bytes, checksum: 5bae5ea284bbe27cf130a12cab482fc7 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Janete de Oliveira Feitosa (janete.feitosa@fgv.br) on 2017-02-22T12:16:44Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Eivile.pdf: 1355320 bytes, checksum: 5bae5ea284bbe27cf130a12cab482fc7 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-03-02T14:31:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Eivile.pdf: 1355320 bytes, checksum: 5bae5ea284bbe27cf130a12cab482fc7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-11-08 / International trade is the key element of globalization and closer economic and political cooperation between the countries. The thesis focuses on analyzing the regional integration effects on the trade patterns of the members of regional trading blocs. The analysis focuses on the EU as the regional formation, and the Baltic States as the members of this union. The Baltic States have undergone unique economic and political developments since gaining independence after the Soviet Union collapsed. Lessons learned from the Baltic States’ experience are unique and valuable for other countries and regions, which are undergoing similar transformations. The main research method used in the thesis is the gravity model of trade, which rests on the key assumption that trade between the countries is defined by the size of the economies and the distance between the countries. The gravity equation estimates showed that the membership of the Baltic States in the EU had a positive and significant effect on the export levels of the Baltic States to other EU members. On the other hand, the membership in the EU is not the main trade stimulating factor. The more important factor for the Baltic States’ exports is the common history of belonging to the former Soviet Union. Therefore, the longer lasting ties still remain important trade creating factors for the Baltic States. At the same time, analysis revealed that the economic ties of the Baltic States with the former Soviet Union members was diminishing significantly over time.

The collapse of USSR in 1991 became a starting point for many deep changes in Eastern and Central Europe. These changes affected not only politics, but all spheres of life. Urban development reflected it as well. The post-Soviet urban transformation is a specific chapter in history of the cities. In our work we will focus on the influence of cultural activities on districts' development with examples of Užupis in Vilnius and Kalamaja in Tallinn. Today both of these districts are known because of their artistic image and quick development. At the same time, these two capitals of Baltic states are registered on UNESCO World heritage list and Užupis and Kalamaja are parts of the protected areas. To support the balance between preservation of the historical heritage and modern development is an important issue for both of them. We will consider the influence of cultural activities on district's development and distinctive features of these processes in cases of Užupis and Kalamaja. Key words: urban transformation, urban development, Cultural quarters, urban districts, cultural heritage, post-Soviet, Baltic states Абстракт Распад СССР в 1991 стал отправной точкой для множества глубоких изменений в Восточной и Центральной Европе. Изменения затронули не только политику, но и все сферы жизни, также они...

The function and symbolism of the Swedish bronze age rampart enclosures has been debated since the late 1800´s. Arguments highlighting their function as fortifications and/ or as ritual centres has been passed back and forth in what today seems to be a subject in a standstill. Very little has been done in comparing the Swedish enclosures with their European equivalents when it comes to the understanding of function. In the early 1990´s their origin in the Lausitz culture of the Late Bronze Age was put forth by several archaeologists, but one needs to keep in mind that this was a time where the Lausitz culture was an increasingly popular subject for Swedish archaeologists to study. In time the similarities between the materials came to be questioned from both an architectural and a chronological standpoint. This paper has therefore been focused on re-examining the Swedish rampart enclosures relation to the European hill forts and fortified settlements. By examining its relations to the import of bronze and ceramics between the southern and eastern coastal areas of the Baltic Sea area and Scandinavia around 1300­-1000 BC, my main goal was to provide an updated and valid theory for the origins of the earliest Swedish rampart enclosures from the same time. Based on the analysis presented in this paper I have, to some extent, been able to distance the earliest Swedish rampart enclosures from the previous Lausitz origin theory. The conclusion is instead that an origin is to be sought in the earlier Únětice culture and it´s rampart fortified settlements from between 1800-1500 BC.

During the past few years a vast amount of research has been done to increase the understanding of the complex ecosystem of the Baltic Sea. Modelling and simulations are important tools to increase knowledge of the system. A suitable model must be simple to use and the parameters and variables needed in the model must be easy to access. In this paper a dynamical mass-balance model, CoastMab, which is validated for smaller coastal areas, has been used to predict concentrations and transports of phosphorus in three large coastal areas - the Gulf of Finland, the Gulf of Gdansk and the Gulf of Riga. CoastMab uses ordinary differential equations to regulate inflow, outflow and internal flows. To reflect seasonal variations in temperature and different types of flows the model has a temporal resolution of a month. The main purposes of this paper have been to evaluate CoastMab, predict the concentrations and the transports of phosphorus in each coastal area and to analyse how much and why the results differ from empirical data. The performed simulations show the importance of a correct calculation of the wave base. This is due to its influence on the division between surface and deep water as well as the division of areas of accumulation and areas of erosion and transport. The retention times of surface and deep water calculated by the model also is of great importance because of their direct influence on the flow of water between the study area and the sea outside the area. This together with the concentration of phosphorus determines the flow of phosphorus in and out of the study area. The dynamical mass-balance model is considered to work well in the three studied areas even though the areas are outside the model domain in several respects. Even if the predictions of the phosphorus concentration in the gulf of Riga was less accurate than in the other study areas, the prediction was inside the interval of standard deviation that has been calculated from empirical data. The major flow of phosphorus in the model was in the cross section between the Baltic proper and the modelled coastal area. Since the model is easy to use and requires only a small number of obligatory input variables it would be appealing to continue development of the model to handle coastal areas of the same size and larger than the study areas in this paper. / Under senare år har mycket forskning utförts för att öka förståelsen av det komplexa ekosystem Östersjön utgör. Viktiga redskap för att öka förståelsen för systemet är modellering och simulering. För att en modell ska vara lämplig att använda är det viktigt att den inte är för komplicerad och att de parametrar och variabler som används i modellen är lättillgängliga. I detta arbete har en dynamisk massbalansmodell, CoastMab, som är validerad för mindre kustområden använts för att modellera fosforkoncentrationer och fosforflöden i tre större kustområden - Finska viken, Gdanskbukten och Rigabukten. CoastMab reglerar genom ordinära differentialekvationer inflöden, utflöden och interna flöden. För att kunna hantera säsongsvariationer i temperatur och olika typer av flöden har modellen en temporär upplösning på en månad. Syftet med arbetet har främst varit att se hur väl CoastMab predikterar fosforkoncentrationen och fosforflöden inom respektive område, samt att analysera hur mycket och varför prediktionerna skiljer sig från empiriska data. De simuleringar som utfördes visade att djupet på den teoretiska vågbasen, som modellen beräknar, är av stor betydelse eftersom den i sin tur bestämmer fördelningen yt- och djupvatten samt fördelningen av ackumulationsbottnar och erosions- och transportbottnar. De utbytestider för yt- och djupvatten som modellen beräknar är också av största vikt eftersom de har en direkt inverkan på vattenflödet mellan studerat område och havet utanför, vilket i sin tur tillsammans med fosforkoncentrationen bestämmer fosforflöden in och ut ur det studerade området. Den dynamiska massbalansmodellen kan anses fungera väl för samtliga tre studerade områden, trots att de ligger utanför modellens domän i flera avseenden. Även om prediktionen av fosforkoncentrationen i Rigabukten blev sämre än för de två övriga områdena, låg prediktionen inom det intervall för standardavvikelsen som beräknats utifrån empiriska data. De största fosforflödena i modellen förekom för samtliga områden i gränssnittet mellan egentliga Östersjön och det modellerade kustområdet. Enkelheten i att använda modellen och det låga antalet obligatoriska drivvariabler gör att den är väl värd att utveckla för att hantera områden av samma eller större storlek än de nu studerade områdena.

I denna uppsats undersöks det hur det fungerar med enskilda avlopp utanför kommunens VA-nät. Hur enskilda avlopp är uppbyggda och hur de fungerar. Varför man bör ha avloppsrening, och vilka lagar och regler som styr enskilda avlopp. Jag utreder vidare varför man ska jobba för en ökad rening av avlopp och varför man ska jobba mot att uppnå ett uthålligt samhälle. Uppsatsen har en teoridel som handlar om hur och varför vi ska sträva efter en uthållig samhällsutveckling. En strävan som kommuner som Söderköping har när dom försöker få människor att byta till hållbara VA-system. Med dom här funderingarna som bakgrund och ett antal frågeställningar har jag skrivit en fyllig bakgrund som går igenom Östersjöns problematik och även relevant information om enskilda avlopp. Jag går igenom varför vi behöver en bra rening och hur man kan jobba för att uppnå en bättre rening. Bakgrunden ger en grund för att jag ska kunna genomföra min undersökning på ett bra sätt. I resultat delen undersöker jag hur Söderköpings kommun och Allren arbetar med enskilda avlopp. Jag valde Söderköpings kommun för att det är en kustnära kommun som av den anledningen alltid brottas med att inte få ut läckage av näring i Östersjön. Och det märks att dom har tagit detta ämne på allvar då dom jobbar för att skapa recirkulation av näringen genom exempelvis urinsorterande system. I slutet av uppsatsen har jag diskussions delar där jag flätar samman uppsatsen och för en diskussion om vad jag har kommit fram till och vad jag har för åsikter om arbetet med enskilda avlopp. Uppsatsen avslutas med att jag har med en didaktik del. En didaktisk del som gör det möjligt att lära ut de kunskaper man besitter efter en uppsats.