I denna uppsats diskuteras sambandet mellan risk, marknadseffektivitet och volatilitet. En studie görs för att se om volatiliteten (kursrörligheten) har ökat i enskilda aktier under tidsperioden 1988-1999. Vidare behandlas vilka faktorer som kan ge upphov till volatilitetsförändringar, vilka konsekvenser en förändrad volatilitet får för olika typer av investerare samt om utvecklingen är förenlig med EMH (den effektiva marknadshypotesen).Studier av volatilitet är intressanta p g a den risk som uppstår för olika marknadsaktörer vid en ökad volatilitet. Uppstår felvärderingar på aktiemarknaden finns även risk för att kapital fördelas på ett sätt som inte är optimalt. I stora drag kan man definiera begreppet volatilitet som ett mått på hur stor osäkerheten är inför den framtida kursutvecklingen för en aktie. Volatilitet är att betrakta som kortsiktiga rörelser i finansiella priser under loppet av en dag eller från en dag till en annan, men begreppet används också / In this paper the relation between risk, market efficiency and volatility is being discussed. A study has been made to see if there has been any change in the volatility for individual stocks during the time period 1988-1999. Further, the factors that contribute to changes in the volatility have been examined and also which the consequences are for various types of investors and whether the developement is consistent with the efficient market hypothesis. The study of volatility is interesting because of the risk that an increased volatility entails for the investors. When mispricing occurs in the stockmarket there is also a risk for a non-optimal allocation of capital. Roughly speaking the definition of volatility is how large the uncertainty is about the future return from an individual stock. Volatility is considered to be short time period movements in financial prices within a day or from one day to another but is also used as a mesaure to describe price

Purpose: To investigate how automation companies within Mälardalen region are aware of the value of brand building in a business-to-business context. The primary interest in this chapter concerns the complexity of business-to-business buyer behaviour and the perceived value of brand related attributes from industrial suppliers perspective. Design/Methodology/Approach: Primary research material was gathered through a structured data collection in the form of direct-questioner consisting of pre-arranged fixed alternative questions. 257 mailings were distributed to top level management with marketing responsibility. Findings: The management of automation companies perceives both product-related and non-product related brand attributes important to communicate in business relations with their customers, highlighting personal capability and trust as key in brand communication. / Automation Region

This study examines the economic impacts of three large-scale terrorist attacks on the Nordic capital markets. Past research has shown evidence of the increasing resilience of the US capital markets towards terrorist attacks. Hereby the Nordic regions capital markets were studied and compared with the US's capital markets, in an intention to find evidence whether or not the same development can be observed in the Nordic countries. The results implied that the Nordic markets did not absorb the shocks as well as the US markets. The analysis was taken into an industry level on the Swedish stock market to get a deeper insight of the impacts of such events. The results indicated the Energy sectors good ability to absorb terrorist attacks in terms of negative abnormal returns and time of recovery. The Financing sector seemed to be the most sensitive sector, since its performance was the weakest in terms of market recovery.

Information technology (IT) has developed and spread and the internet is now available in nearly every corner of the world all the time. It is adequate to say that we are entering an information economy. E-business is an important business tool, which is reflected by the emerging presence of the internet. Furthermore, the Internetworld says that in accordance with a development plan from the European Union it should be possible to carry out all government business electronically in 2010. But, already in January 2008, the state authorities shall be able to send and receive e-invoices. The project "E-service for safe mining projects" is one of the projects within the government owned Vinnova programme Innovative development of cross-boundary public e-services. This thesis is written on assignment for that project, taking on the role of a consultant. Companies can through the internet easily find business over boarders, geographical or other, and there is money to be earned in new markets. To do this companies have a need to know their potential customers, their needs and wants. The purposes of this thesis are to explore the perceived needs for the "E-service of safe mining projects" and the benefits it could bring to its potential customers. By considering the customers potential needs with the aid of a theoretical lens this thesis also aims to make suggestions to the company of what to consider in the development process of this e-service and discuss how their desires could be met by the e-service. The theoretical chapter begins with explaining the concepts of services and e-services. Cravens and Piercy's model for determining product-markets and Zeithaml's et al gap model are used. The study is done using semi-structured interviews of four different interest groups for the e-service. There were three researchers conducting the interviews together. The conclusions of the study are that to satisfy the customers is not very easily done. Customers of today often have high expectations of the quality of the service and they want the service provider to know their needs and wants. What could be helpful for this e-service is that because it is semi-public service the potential customers may consider it a public service instead of a private service and thus the expectations will be lowered. The generic need is the "need to get the right information" and there are a number of specific perceived needs adherent to the potential customers. Also recommendations are given to the project.

Denna uppsats undersöker huruvida ett antal aktiemarknader på Balkan tillfredställer den svaga formen av marknadseffektivitet under perioden 2003-2007. Svag marknadseffektivitet innebär att priset på en finansiell tillgång reflekterar all historisk prisinformation. Om en marknad är svagt effektiv leder analys av historisk kursinformation inte till överavkastning eftersom all historisk information redan är diskonterad av marknaden. För att pröva den svaga formen av effektivitet för Kroatien, Makedonien, Montenegro, Serbien och Slovenien genomförs olika statistiska tester såsom autokorrelationstest, runs test, varianskvottest och regressionsanalys. Samtliga tester i studien genomförs på dagsavkastningar. Resultatet av undersökningen visar att samtliga avkastningsserier lider av positiv autokorrelation, vilket innebär att den historiska avkastningen i viss mån kan användas för att predicera den framtida avkastningen. Detta behöver dock inte betyda avvikelse från den effektiva marknadsmodellen då den ekonomiska signifikansen är relativt låg med en genomsnittlig förklarningsgrad under fem procent.

The purpose of this research paper is to find how much risk is involved in investing emerging market debt. Emerging markets are becoming a hub for foreign investors either that is an equity or debt investment. The risk is the important element for investors. As for emerging markets the most important risk that investor can face is exchange rate and political risk. I used Augmented Dickey-Fuller to carry out unit roots and johansen cointegration analysis of exchange rates and political risk in emerging markets. My result shows that individual variables are integrated order one, means unit root exist. This shows that political risk tends to follow a random walk. My finding suggests that there is a long run relationship between political risk and exchange rate. As the political risk increase exchange rate also fluctuate with relation to political situation.

This thesis is conducted for Monitor Industriutveckling AB. The company grows fast and is ready to consider the expansion of its business abroad. The details how to pro-ceed with the expansion are yet to be set. The purpose of this work is to examine dif-ferent options to aid the company management select the most meaningful way to proceed. The analytical framework used consists of three well-known business theories. There are the New Capabilities analysis, the PEST analysis and finally the five forces model. Robert Grant’s New Capabilities analysis shows that especially the strategic alliances capability could be an interesting new capability and a way to grow for Monitor. The PEST-analysis proves that Finland can offer good opportunities for Monitor’s type of company because the country itself is very IT-oriented and political and economical as well as social forces can support Monitor’s business. Finland can also be a gateway to eastern-European countries. Finally we have Michael Porter’s five forces model. Monitor has lots of potential customers in Finland. There is a substantial amount of small and medium-sized companies in the manufacturing industry. Taxes and legisla-tion will not be a problem when entering Finland, as they are similar compared to Sweden. There are no big cultural differences between Finland and Sweden. These countries even share the same language, Swedish, which is a quite unique advantage. I have collected the empirical data of this thesis mostly by personal interviews. Here I show that Monitor’s current customers in Finland would prefer to see their supplier present in the same country. They would also appreciate Finnish-speaking personnel and support. I have also interviewed business specialists. According to them, Monitor would easily adapt to the Finnish business culture and make its product successful. The right attitude in Finnish business environment would just boost Monitor’s suc-cess. The strength of the Monitor product is its user-friendliness. The weakness and at the same time its opportunity is that the company grows very fast. When a company grows it must be ready to make big decisions and choose where to go and at the same time be there to support each and every present customer. The conclusion is that Monitor has good possibilities to become a successful company in Finland. From a marketing point of view, Monitor should invest in marketing ac-tions and make itself known and seen among its target group. The recommended way to enter Finland would be to find a good distributor for Monitor’s product. This entry method would be the one with the smallest risk and it is also probably the quickest way to proceed. I recommend Monitor to choose a distributor that can complete its product-palette with Monitor.

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{page:Section1;} --> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <mce:style><! /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} --> <!--[endif]--> The overall purpose of the paper is to see how crediting institutions assess risks in emerging market countries. The paper describes prevalent economic and social conditions for each of the selected emerging market countries (Brazil, China, Kazakhstan, India, Russia and Ukraine) as examples of recent attractive investment locations in quest of higher returns.  Second, recognizing the importance of ratings for risk management in credit institutions, the authors show what determines country ratings made by main rating agencies by running a linear regression on several macroeconomic indicators and the country ratings. It is also explained what the most widely-used ratings mean and described the correlation between the ratings as well as between the macroeconomic indicators and the ratings. The authors also describe the characteristic approach of a Scandinavian bank towards dealing with risk factors in emerging market countries. Concluding comments: risks happen to be inbound in the bank interest rates; there is no common pattern for banks to apply to all the emerging market countries and each market should be analyzed separately. Nordic banks have a relatively safe and careful strategy concerning lending in the emerging markets.

Although human capital investment is often proposed as a solution to improve the labour market prospects of individuals who reach adulthood without obtaining a post-secondary credential, little is known about whether skills upgrading actually pays off. Using three national cross-sectional surveys on adult education as well as longitudinal data from the Panel Survey of Income Dynamics (1992-2005), I analyze how returning to school affects the earnings trajectories of men and women who enter the labour force with low levels of initial education. There are two major findings related to the earnings and advancement question. First, although both Canadian and American adults with low levels of initial education are significantly less likely than their more educated counterparts to participate in education and training, when they do participate, they are more likely to report it helped them increase their earnings. Second, these perceived gains are matched by substantial gains in actual earning growth. While the opportunity cost of returning to school is quite high – returnees experience a sharp drop in annual earnings during the years while they are in school – for both women and men, this investment yields a significant increase in earnings in the post schooling period. In addition, I address the question of why – if the earnings gains are so substantial – do so few less educated adults return to school? There are three key findings related to the participation question. First, even after accounting for a rich set of covariates, the effects of family of origin socio-economic status on educational attainment persist over the life course. Second, despite these enduring effects, current family and labour market dynamics matter as well. Consistent with the human capital model, I find evidence that, educationally disadvantaged individuals return to school to improve their labour market prospects. Taken together these results demonstrate that at least for some educationally disadvantaged adults, human capital investment is an effective strategy for labour market advancement. This conclusion challenges the standard ‘cumulative disadvantage’ view of adult education as simply another mechanism that serves to reproduce inequality.

The popularity of Farmers’ markets is on the rise; in Canada there are 425 farmers’ markets, with over 130 in Ontario alone (Feagan, Morris, & Krug, 2004). Farmers’ markets provide high quality, local produce and are often considered an environmentally sustainable food practice (Taxel, 2003; King 2008). United States studies have scrutinized farmers’ markets as exclusionary white spaces that are not equitably accessible, but similar Canadian studies are rare. A case study at the Wychwood Artscape Barns, located in an economically and culturally diverse neighbourhood, in Toronto Ontario has been conducted. Demographics surveys of patrons were compared with existing demographic data; interviews were conducted to discover who shops at the market and for what reasons; results were analyzed using whiteness theory. Results were consistent with U.S. studies – Wychwood Farmers’ Market patrons were white, high income,individuals with university educations; these individuals shop at the market disproportionally to the demographic data.