Bachelor Thesis, Program of Master of Business and Economics, 15 hp School of Business and Economics – Linnaeus University in Växjö 2FE30E:3 Spring, 2017 Authors: Sofie Areskoug and Niklas Karlén Supervisor: Damai Nasution Examiner: Natalia Semenova Keywords: Financial Analyst, Gender, Determinants of forecast accuracy, Sweden Background: The search of finding analysts who make the best forecasts has been an ongoing process since the 1930's. Determinants that can help predict the forecast accuracy of the analysts are in the interest of both investors and brokerage houses. Newer research in this area has taken gender of the analyst into consideration. Women are widely under-represented in the analyst occupation and there is evidence that investors are apprehensive toward women in the financial sector. Purpose: The aim of this thesis is to examine determinants of forecast accuracy regarding analysts covering Swedish companies. The authors have confidence in the research to benefit investors in their decisions on the Swedish stock market. In addition, the authors aim to shed light on the unequal gender representation of female analysts. Method: This thesis has examined 519 individual scores of forecast accuracy from 284 financial analysts covering stocks on the Swedish Index OMXS30. The forecasts are from the years 2016 and 2017. This study has a quantitative strategy and the data have been tested by an OLS estimates regression. Results: The empirical evidence shows that being a female analyst have a statistically significant positive effect on forecast accuracy. Female analysts covering Swedish stocks seem to outperform their male colleagues. Furthermore, insignificant results were found for firm complexity, industry complexity, brokerage house and analyst experience.

The aim of this diploma thesis is to analyse the retail concept of the IKEA Group. The theoretical part focuses on retail concepts in general, trends which are currently having a significant influence on retail concepts and the country of company's origin -- Sweden. The practical part analyses three main pillars of its retail concept -- catalogue, store and web site. Further it analyses Company's marketing tools, IKEA's trademark, copyright and its activities related to environmental sustainability and corporate social responsibility.

The thesis provides an analysis of Swedish economic development since the accession to the EU till present with emphasis on a period of boom and crisis at the beginning of the 3rd millennium. Basic macroeconomic indicators, such as GDP growth, inflation rate, public balance, general government debt, unemployment rate, foreign direct investment, current account of balance of payments are used to describe the economic development of Sweden. The first chapter focuses on the Swedish economy from the accession to the EU till the turn of the millennium. The second chapter deals with the Swedish economic development during the years 2000-2006. The third chapter describes the economic development of Sweden during the global economic crisis in 2007-2009 including selected issues related to the crisis.

The main objective of our essay is to analyze the influence of the spouse on the partner’s retirement decision. Drawing on a large sample of older citizens and a combination of a postal survey and register data, we use standard econometric techniques to identify the impact of the spouse’s characteristics on the partner’s decision to retire. The results of our estimations show that cohabiting/married males’ decision to retire was negatively affected by their partners’ health condition. On the other hand, cohabiting/married women were more likely to retire if their partner had already retired.

Denna studie undersöker fenomenet sexhandel och prostitution. Genom intervjuer med myndighetspersoner och ideella organisationer som arbetar för att bekämpa sexhandel och prostitution i Sverige, ville vi undersöka vilka perspektiv dessa organisationer och myndigheter har på fenomenet. Vi tittade på hur dessa beskriver situationen och hur de ser på utvecklingen av arbetet mot sexhandel och prostitution, samt hur de arbetar och vilka utmaningar de ser i Sverige. Liksom tidigare forskning visat så är detta ett växande problem med stora mörkertal där förövarna tenderar att vara anonyma och offren vanligtvis kommer från utsatta situationer, vilket driver dem in i prostitution och sexhandel. Majoriteten av offren är kvinnor från fattigare länder som säljs till Sverige genom hallickar. Då svenska män betalar betydligt mer än männen i kvinnornas hemländer, blir Sverige ett attraktivt land för sexhandel. De svenska sexköparna har övervägande god ekonomi, även om det förekommer att män från alla samhällsklasser köper sex. I och med den svenska lagstiftningen och den fria rörligheten inom Europa så köper majoriteten av de svenska sexköparna sex utomlands. Sexhandeln ger mest inkomst till hallickarna vilka behåller största delen av pengarna själva samtidigt som kvinnorna ofta sätts i beroendeställning till hallickarna genom skuldsättning och bristande språkkunskaper. Det framkom att sexhandel och prostitution drivs av krafter som förvriden människosyn, pengar, makt, sexdrift, och diskriminering. En stor bidragande orsak till att problemet fortfarande existerar och växer är efterfrågan vilken också stimuleras av pornografin. Porren harstark koppling till sexhandel och prostitution då den normaliserar en förvriden kvinnosyn, dessutom går porrkonsumtionen ner i åldrarna i dagens Sverige. Både frivilligarbetare och myndighetspersoner arbetar på olika sätt för att förebygga och bekämpa prostitution och sexhandel, genom opinionsbildning, förebyggande arbete, operativt och uppsökande arbete samt rehabilitering. De intervjuade efterfrågade mer resurser och underströk vikten och nödvändigheten av samverkan för att kunna bekämpa sexhandeln och prostitutionen.

Since the Swedish health care system is mostly organized at a regional level and the population density across the Swedish regions are variating, the supply of health care differs among the regions. Population density and the centralization of care is also affecting the distribution of health care facilities since most opportunities for care will be found where population density is high, such as larger cities. In northern Sweden where the larger parts of the area are sparsely populated and the main cities are mostly located along the coast, accessibility to health care for the rural population and their urban counterparts are therefore very different. The level of accessibility to health care can be more crucial in some situations than in other, one of these is childbirth. Since the labour process can develop quickly, the need to get the right care at the right time can be vital for both mother and child.  In the past years there have been changes to the maternity hospital distribution in northern Sweden. This is due to the closure of Sollefteå maternity hospital and the temporal closing of Lycksele maternity hospital. The aim of this thesis is to analyse the change in accessibility between 2013 and 2019 as a result of these shutdowns. This is done using service area analysis through the ArcGIS network analyst extension. The result show that the closures have had large impact on the spatial accessibility, increasing travel times to maternity hospitals for the inland population. Those who are mostly affected are people who already had poor accessibility, these are also places who have a small population. The result also shows that around 90 % of the women could reach their closest maternity hospital within one hour in 2013 compared to around 80 % in 2019. Around 40 % of the women are at higher risk of childbirth complications since they exceed 20 minutes travel time, this was the same value in 2013 as for 2019. As conclusion, closures have decreased accessibility for women in the inland of northern Sweden but the largest part of the population remain having good accessibility to their closest maternity hospital.

The research in this paper examined the legitimacy of land-use planning when there are polarizing views of how a specific project should develop. The focused was on the case study of Skutberget in the municipality of Karlstad, Sweden, were two separate planning processes are ongoing. The current development plans regards a Moomin inspired theme park where the company Moomin OY is the developer, as well as an improvement and development of the existing recreational park were the municipality is the responsible part. In a Swedish context, municipalities have a strong authority when it comes to land-use planning, a right often labelled as a “planning monopoly”. This research fills a gap in the scientific academic literature when it comes to assessing democratic processes on a local level, with a special regard to spatial planning. Legitimacy in a representative democracy is a multifaceted concept, which requires both aspects of political representation and social acceptance for a decision to be deemed legitimate. With the case study, political representation regarding both a desire and aversion of developing Skutberget exist. This difference in opinion regarding the development of Skutberget is reflected in public attitude as well, were the theme park of Moomin OY is the biggest dispute. People reflecting different perceptions have taken it upon themselves to engage with media outlets to vocalise their opinions and news articles of the development of Skutberget is a recurring feature in local newspapers. Full social acceptance and consent are, therefore, lacking for the process of developing Skutberget. But as the opinions differ in Karlstad, it is a matter of interpretation of what consist of social acceptance and how to value it in the planning and decision-making process.

The purpose of this essay is to study what impact immigration has on the Swedish income distribution for the period 1992-2005. This essay uses a two-folded approach to study the income distribution, first, an income inequality measure will be investigated in order to find if the inequality increases or decreases by the increased immigration. Secondly, we estimate a quantile regression for the 10th, 50th and 90th percentiles for the period 1992, 1995, 2000 and2005, together with an OLS regression in order to find the income gap between the immigrants and natives, which is analysed for males and females separately. The study found that the inflow of immigrants increased income inequality in the lower tail of the income distribution. Immigrants at the upper tail of the income distribution are doing relatively better than the immigrants in the lower tail of the income distribution. Conclusively, independently of gender, the income gap between immigrants and natives is almost three times as large in the lower tail of the income distribution relative to the upper tail of the income distribution.

Title: Evidence based practice within social work in Sweden: a systematic literature study Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the research concerning EBP in a Swedish context. Method: a systematic literature study, wherein 16 articles were used and assessed using thematic analysis. Results: the study further clarifies the vagueness concerning the term EBP and what it contains. The results point to several factors which facilitate as well as inhibit the implementation of EBP, and that organization and leadership pose a significant role in the development of social workers organizations. Further findings are the gap between theory and practice and the lack of research of EBP in a Swedish context. / <p>2019-06-04</p>

Innovation leads to economic growth, however, financing innovation comes with major uncertainties and therefore there is a risk of underinvestment in innovation. One type of investor who is prepared to take on this uncertainty is the Venture Capitalist (VC). The question remaining is whether VCs spur further innovation or mainly exploit existing innovation. By counting the patent registrations in 133 Swedish VC financed firms and comparing these to 609 control firms, the difference in innovation level is assessed. The result indicate that VC financed firms, on average, become 23% more innovative after receiving financing from a VC. Thus, it is concluded that VCs spur innovation in the Swedish context.