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<p>Diss. Stockholm : Stockholm School of Economics, 1972.</p><p>Part I : Principles and methods</p><p>Part II : Problems of application</p>

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Romania is an interesting laboratory for the study of urbanization. Few countries in Europe have experienced such sharp social, cultural and economic discrimination between town and village, among regions and among ethnic groups. Profound political changes after the two world wars have added to the complexity of the urban transition. Within the span of a century, Romania was transformed from a semi-feudal society with a bonded peasantry, into a market economy largely based on subsistence agriculture and then into an industrialized socialist society. At the end of World War II, 70% of the population of Romania were dependent on agriculture. A major aim of the postwar regime was to break up social structure and transform the entire population into a homogeneous class, modelled on the urban workers. The domination of the peasantry and the weak tradition of the working class made this a complete social transformation. The postwar industrialization and the urbanization programmes should be seen in this context. The present study purports to analyze, interpret and describe urban transition in Romania; the transformation of the country from an agrarian society based on subsistence farming and a peasant culture to an industrialized socialist society. Dearth of data have limited this study to a largely explorative broad approach which covers the period from the late 19th century until 1980. Industrial, habitational, socio-economic and cultural aspects are all studied in separate chapters and regional and etnic aspects are examined in detail. In the final chapter, features of postwar urbanization in Romania, ascibed to the introduction of a centrally planned economy within a socialist ideology, are distinguished and discussed. The main data generated in the study are listed in an appendix to facilitate further research. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögsk.

This dissertation is an attempt to interpret a critical period of Swedish history, the first wave of industrialization, from 1871 to 1890. The questions raised have been important issues in Swedish history. What accounts for the growth during the period? What determined agricultural development? Did the falling world market price on grain really play a depressive role, or were there other offsetting forces? What explains emigration and what was its influence on the Swedish economy? These questions are still debated. Yet while the issues discussed in this dissertation are old, the methods are not. The author applies a non-linear computable general equilibrium model to these problems. The model is designed to describe Swedish demo-economic development during its first phase of industrialization. Through counterfactual simulations the different questions are addressed. The results indicate the importance of a general equilibrium approach rather than a partial one. The role of certain strategic variables changes when the interactions between sectors and markets are taken into account. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögsk.

Denna studie har en kvantitativ ansats, och dess huvudsyfte är att undersöka om fäders utbildningsnivå påverkar när deras barn flyttar hemifrån men också analysera om individens egen utbildningsnivå har ett samband med flytten. Med hjälp av data från Generations and Gender Programme tar studien hjälp av information från ett totalt urval på 9 688 svenskar. I samspelen som undersöks har även andra variabler tagits i beaktande, såsom individernas kön, deras moders härkomst och om föräldrarna varit eller är sepererade. Resultatet kunde inte visa ifall fädernas utbildningsnivå påverkar barnens hemflytt, på grund av ett icke signifikant samband. Å andra sidan kunde andra variabler såsom individens egen utbildningsnivå visas bidra mer konsekvent till en tidigare flytt från hemmet. Lika-så påskyndades flytt av om individen var kvinna, hade haft eller har skilda föräldrar, och om modern var född i Sverige.

Service quality is an essential concept to understand in commercial contexts to create and maintain customer satisfaction. In the banking sector, it becomes especially important, as the competitive situation between the banks is evident and they offer similar services to customers. Service quality can therefore be a contributing factor for a bank to be able to stand out to customers. Few studies have been done on service quality in the banking sector, especially in Sweden. The last few years have been reflected by economic concern with negative external factors for instance, the war in Ukraine, increased energy prices, and an increased interest rate situation. This has affected private individuals considerably, while the Swedish banks instead make billions in profits from these negative externalities.The purpose of the study is, therefore, to explain private individuals' perceived service quality in the banking sector, in a relationship with economic pressure from the external factors experienced in the past year. To answer the research questions and fulfill the purpose that was set in the study, a quantitative survey has been carried out on private individuals. The questions were based on service quality theory and mainly the SERVQUAL framework and its determinants. Findings indicated that similar patterns were found within all determinants and service quality as whole, but not every variable were significant. Those who have had a worse financial situation in the last year have had an overall worse experience of the bank's service quality, in comparison with those who have had a better financial situation in the last year. It also showed that men are more likely to switch banks when perceived service quality is worse, while women indicated more towards changing banks primarily due to impaired finances and not primarily service quality.

This study deals with the relationship between communications networks and economic structure in medium-sized Swedish towns 1850-1970. Medium-sized towns have been defined as those which were ranked 4th-20th in terms of population at two points in time: in the year 1900, when industry had established a foothold and the most important railways had been built, and in the year 1970, at the end of the period studied. This means that the group studied comprises 22 towns. The communications networks which are examined are shipping, railways and roads. The economic structure is studied at various levels from economic sectors to sub-branches.Two measures have been constructed for the purpose of establishing the positions of the towns in the communications networks: accessibility and nodality. The former is calculated on the basis of distance from other towns and their populations. The latter is computed via quantification of the towns' access to the links of the respective networks and an assessment of the quality of these.Statistical relation analyses of correlation and regression type have been the principal method of analysis, which has been supplemented, however, by information culled from urban monographs and other studies.The study shows that there is a relationship between communications networks, primarily the railways, and the transformation of the towns' economic structures during the first half of the period studied. The predominant alignment of this relationship appears to be that the structural transformation precedes the expansion of the railways. Among the various economic sectors, the relationship between industry and the railways is the clearest. The relationship changes direction with the passage of time and can be divided into four phases:1.1850s - 1870s. The towns with strongest population and industrial growth attract railways to themselves and are themselves most active in expanding the railways. A weak correlation between accessibility of towns in the shipping network and industry dwindles away when the railways begin to expand.2.1870s - 1900. The relationship between industry and railways is two-way.3. 1900-1950.The building of the most important railways is completed. Industry continues to adapt to accessibility within the railway network.4.After 1950. The medium-sized towns begin to be deindustrialised as the service sector undergoes vigorous growth. The correlation between industry and railways weakens.On the other hand a supplementary study of conditions at regional level shows that railway expansion preceded structural change. In the rural parts of Sweden the railways were an important driving force behind urbanisation and industrialisation, and they created a special type of new population centre -"station villages", as they were called - which came to function as industrial focal points in the countryside. Many of these station villages rose to the status of towns later on.At lower levels of the economic structure the relationships between economic activities and communications networks are not statistically guaranteed as a rule. This is interpreted to mean that at first it was only large aggregates such as population density and total industry that were capable of influencing railway expansion. In similar fashion the railways later became a factor exercising influence primarily at the macro level, while at the micro level they formed only a base on which a number of other location factors were collected and evaluated before the individual firms reached their decisions. / digitalisering@umu

The aim of the thesis is to describe and analyse socio-economic changes in northern Sweden. Focus is on the period 1985-2000. Population development, restructuring of economic activities, political and cultural changes are related to a theoretical discussion on the transformation of sparsely populated areas as an outcome of multi-dimensional and interrelated processes. Besides an introductory and concluding section, the thesis contains four papers. The first paper deals with forestry's changed role in the local economy of four municipalities located in the inland areas of upper Norrland. The changes within forestry have been driven by adaptation to global competition and rapid technical development. Even though timber production has increased in some of the municipalities, job losses have greatly reduced the importance of forestry in the local economies. Many employees have left forestry for work in other branches, unemployment or retirement However, relatively few have moved from the area. A multiplier model was employed in order to analyse the impact on the local economy. The second paper deals with population changes in the six northernmost counties. During the 1990s, most municipalities and rural areas in northern Sweden have experienced renewed depopulation. At the same time, some rural areas have shown significant population growth. Three types of rural areas with population growth have been identified. Firstly, there are rural areas within daily commuting distance from regional centres. Secondly, there is a group of rural areas, mainly a number of mountain villages close to the border with Norway, which has benefited from the tourist industry. Finally, there are a few rural areas characterised by attractive residential environments and leisure housing. The third paper is based on a classification of 500 residential areas and villages in the county of Västerbotten into seven types of housing environments. In this way, the county is broken down into a mosaic of housing environments characterised by very different prerequisites for consumption and economic development A complex and dispersed pattern of disadvantaged residential areas all over the county indicates the difficulty in treating counties and municipalities as homogeneous regions. In the fourth paper, focus is on young peoples' attitudes towards staying in or moving to small communities within a local labour market region in northern Sweden. The study is based on telephone interviews with 400 young men and women in the Umeå region. Half the interviewees lived in the university city of Umeå while the others were residents in five rural municipalities surrounding Umeå. In general, the males and females aged 19-25 had a much more positive attitude towards living in rural communities than did those aged 15-18. Nevertheless, only half of the young people already living in the rural municipalities wanted to stay there. Among the young people living in the city, slightly less than 50% showed an interest in moving to the surrounding rural areas, mainly the countryside within commuting distance from the city. The connection between higher education and out-migration of young people from rural areas is also highlighted. / <p>Diss. (sammanfattning) Umeå : Univ., 2002</p> / digitalisering@umu

This thesis consists of four self-contained empirical essays. In the first essays "Markets for Risk and Openness to Trade: How are They Related?" (with Helena Svaleryd), we ask if there is an empirical relationship between financial development and openness to trade. Numerous theoretical papers have noted that trade policies can be used as an insurance against shocks from international markets. It follows that the development of markets for risk should reduce the incentives to rely on trade policy for insurance purposes. Feeney and Hillman (2001) explicitly demonstrate how asset-market incompleteness can affect trade policy in a model where trade policy is determined by the lobbying of interest groups. If risk can be fully diversified, special-interest groups have no incentive to lobby for protection, and free trade will prevail. Likewise, trade liberalization might increase the demand for financial services, thereby spurring the development of financial markets. Using several indicators of both openness to trade and financial development, we find an economically significant relation between the two. In particular, the relation holds when using the well known, although criticized (Rodriguez and Rodrik 1999), Sachs-Warner index, and structurally adjusted trade, as indicators of openness. For tariff levels and non-tariff barriers, the results hold only for relatively rich countries. Causality seems to be running both from openness to financial development and the other way around, depending on which indicator and methodology are used. Due to underlying technological differences, industries differ in their need for external financing (Rajan and Zingales, 1998). Since services provided by the financial sector are largely immobile across countries (Pagano et al., 2001), the pattern of specialization should be influenced by the degree of financial development. In the second essay, "Financial Markets, the Pattern of Specialization, and Comparative Advantage: Evidence from OECD Countries" (with Helena Svaleryd), we find this effect to be strong. In fact, the financial sector has an even greater impact on the pattern of specialization among OECD countries than differences in human- and physical capital. Further, the financial sector gives rise to comparative advantage in a way consistent with the Hecksher-Ohlin-Vanek model. Large and active stock markets, as well as the degree of concentration in the banking sector, produce the strongest and most consistent effects. The results also support the view that the quality accounting standards and the legal protection of creditors affect the pattern of industry specialization, while the depth of the financial system (measured by the amount of liquidity in an economy) is a source of comparative advantage. The third essay, "Who Wants Political Integration? Evidence from the Swedish EU-Membership Referendum" looks directly at the determinants of political attitudes towards regional integration and separation. More precisely, the regional voting pattern of the 1994 Swedish EU-membership referendum is analyzed. To explain this variation, an empirical investigation based on the extensive theoretical literature analyzing the determinants of regional economic and political integration is undertaken. Since enhanced possibilities of inter-regional risk sharing is one of the main gains from integration discussed in the literature (e.g Persson and Tabellini, 1996), special attention is given to this issue. The empirical results show that individuals living in labor markets exposed to a high degree of risk were more negative towards EU-membership than those living in safe ones. It is also shown that inhabitants of high-income labor markets, with a high level of schooling and small receipts of central government transfers were relatively positive towards the EU-membership. Given the restrictive regulations limiting discretionary policies within the EU, these results suggest that inhabitants of safe and rich regions voted in favor of secession from the Swedish transfer system, rather than in favor of European integration. In the final essay, "Does Labor Market Risk Increase the Size of the Public Sector? Evidence From Swedish Municipalities", I study if a high degree of private labor-market risk is related to a larger public sector in Swedish municipalities. The theoretical hypothesis is based on Rodrik (1998), who argues (and shows empirically) that countries exposed to a high degree of external risk also tend to have larger governments. The safe public sector is expanded at the expense of risky sectors and hence provides insurance against income volatility. Several problems related to data availability and comparability that apply to cross-country studies are circumvented by using data on Swedish municipalities. Further, there is no need to aggregate the public sector across different levels of governance: local risk is directly related to the size of the local public sector. The paper is not a complete parallel to Rodrik’s study, however. Several alternative insurance mechanisms that do not exist between countries are available between municipalities. For example, the central government provides insurance against individual-specific risk such as unemployment and illness, private capital markets are better integrated within than between countries, and the central government can hand out grants to municipalities. Despite these mitigating factors, local labor-market risk is found to have a substantial impact on municipal public employment. It is also found that shocks increasing the size of the public sector across all municipalities tend to generate a larger increase in risky locations. For municipal public spending and taxation the results are, however, much weaker. Hence, labor-market risk affects the labor intensity of the municipal public sector, rather than its size. / <p>Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2002</p>