<p>The background to the thesis is the high rate for sickness absence in Sweden since the end of the 1990s. In an international perspective, the Swedish sickness absence appears exceptionally high. This can appear paradoxical bearing in mind the high standard of living and the high average length of life in Sweden, and there is much to indicate that complex causal correlations are involved.</p><p>The overall aim of the thesis is to study and analyse the return to work or transition to disability pension, for persons on long-term sick leave from their own perspective. The focus of the thesis is the individual in a social context.</p><p>The theoretical frame of reference is within medical sociology and is about sickness concepts and models and on medicalisation. The concept of work capacity is also taken up based on the concepts of disability and impairment.</p><p>The empirical material consists of four studies. Two of these are qualitative interview studies with women. One of them (I) is about Greek women who have been granted Swedish disability pension. The aim of this study is to find explanations why such a large number of Greek women have become disability pensioners in Sweden. The analysis indicated some important factors: the doctors, the family and the social insurance system. The women had unclear psychosomatic complaints, which had been medicalised. The other qualitative study (IV) concerned women who after sick leave and rehabilitation succeeded in returning to work. It was seen to be strong and stubborn women who had to struggle to get back to working life. They had also been well taken care of in rehabilitation.</p><p>The other two studies (II and III) are quantitative, prospective cohort studies with persons on sick leave with unspecified back and neck complaints. One main aim of one study (III) was to investigate the importance of motivation for rehabilitation and return to work. Two specially designed forms were used. It was seen, among other things that the forecasts of the person on sick leave on return to work coincided quite well with a follow-up two years later. One important result was that those who had undergone rehabilitation measures had returned to work to a much lesser extent than those who had not.</p><p>Overall, the results showed the importance of listening to the individual and taking their own assessments of obstacles and possibilities in the rehabilitation process into consideration. The results in study III indicated that rehabilitation had not been sufficiently effective and in many cases did not lead to a return to work.</p>

<p>Hyresbostadsfonder är en ny placeringsform i Sverige som erbjuder privatpersoner, företag och institutioner att äga hyresfastigheter och erhålla avkastning från förvaltningsöverskott och värdeökning. I denna studie jämförs aktie- och obligationsfonder med en simulerad hyresbostadsfond ur ett risk kontra avkastningsperspektiv. Fonden baseras på data över den svenska fastighetsmarknaden från Svenskt Fastighetsindex och Investment Property Database, därför att placeringsformen är ny och det råder brist på historisk data från verkliga aktörer.</p><p>Målet med studien är att besvara om hyresbostadsfonder är ett konkurrenskraftigt alternativ till aktie- och obligationsfonder. Utöver finansiella jämförelser redogör författarna eventuella dolda risker och nackdelar med placeringsformen.</p><p>Resultatet från studien visar att hyresbostadsfonden har presterat bättre än både aktie- och obligationsfonderna under perioden 1988-2008. Bidragande faktorer till denna utveckling har identifierats och redovisats. Placeringsformen kräver stor mängd kapital som binds upp under sex år och alla kan av den anledningen inte investera.</p>

The background to the thesis is the high rate for sickness absence in Sweden since the end of the 1990s. In an international perspective, the Swedish sickness absence appears exceptionally high. This can appear paradoxical bearing in mind the high standard of living and the high average length of life in Sweden, and there is much to indicate that complex causal correlations are involved. The overall aim of the thesis is to study and analyse the return to work or transition to disability pension, for persons on long-term sick leave from their own perspective. The focus of the thesis is the individual in a social context. The theoretical frame of reference is within medical sociology and is about sickness concepts and models and on medicalisation. The concept of work capacity is also taken up based on the concepts of disability and impairment. The empirical material consists of four studies. Two of these are qualitative interview studies with women. One of them (I) is about Greek women who have been granted Swedish disability pension. The aim of this study is to find explanations why such a large number of Greek women have become disability pensioners in Sweden. The analysis indicated some important factors: the doctors, the family and the social insurance system. The women had unclear psychosomatic complaints, which had been medicalised. The other qualitative study (IV) concerned women who after sick leave and rehabilitation succeeded in returning to work. It was seen to be strong and stubborn women who had to struggle to get back to working life. They had also been well taken care of in rehabilitation. The other two studies (II and III) are quantitative, prospective cohort studies with persons on sick leave with unspecified back and neck complaints. One main aim of one study (III) was to investigate the importance of motivation for rehabilitation and return to work. Two specially designed forms were used. It was seen, among other things that the forecasts of the person on sick leave on return to work coincided quite well with a follow-up two years later. One important result was that those who had undergone rehabilitation measures had returned to work to a much lesser extent than those who had not. Overall, the results showed the importance of listening to the individual and taking their own assessments of obstacles and possibilities in the rehabilitation process into consideration. The results in study III indicated that rehabilitation had not been sufficiently effective and in many cases did not lead to a return to work.

The purpose of this study is to analyze Swedish hedge funds in terms of pursued investment strategies, risks and returns. The study deals with a large number of quantitative data and delimitations were used to obtain a sample that better fulfills the purpose of this paper. The time frame chosen for increas-ing validity and reliability was almost four years. Furthermore, the study uses secondary data due to difficulties and costs as-sociated with obtaining primary data though this is not consi-dered as lowering the quality of the study. The theory section starts by presenting the differences between hedge funds and mutual funds and then focusing on different hedge fund strategies, risks associated with hedge funds and fi-nally risk and return measurements. This section provides an overview for the empirical findings and analysis. In the empirical findings and analysis, statistical calculations of and Analysis the risk measurements standard deviation, Sharpe ratio, track-ing error and correlation are conducted for the sample. The re-sults are related to the hedge funds strategies. Later on the strategies are weighted against each other. Finally, all strategies are compared to OMXS to find the investors‟ most appropriate investment structure. After categorizing the different hedge funds with respect to pursued strategies, the result shows how there are clear dispari-ties in risk and returns for the different strategies. We found indications of a significant relationship between high return and high risk as well as between low return and low risk.

Hyresbostadsfonder är en ny placeringsform i Sverige som erbjuder privatpersoner, företag och institutioner att äga hyresfastigheter och erhålla avkastning från förvaltningsöverskott och värdeökning. I denna studie jämförs aktie- och obligationsfonder med en simulerad hyresbostadsfond ur ett risk kontra avkastningsperspektiv. Fonden baseras på data över den svenska fastighetsmarknaden från Svenskt Fastighetsindex och Investment Property Database, därför att placeringsformen är ny och det råder brist på historisk data från verkliga aktörer. Målet med studien är att besvara om hyresbostadsfonder är ett konkurrenskraftigt alternativ till aktie- och obligationsfonder. Utöver finansiella jämförelser redogör författarna eventuella dolda risker och nackdelar med placeringsformen. Resultatet från studien visar att hyresbostadsfonden har presterat bättre än både aktie- och obligationsfonderna under perioden 1988-2008. Bidragande faktorer till denna utveckling har identifierats och redovisats. Placeringsformen kräver stor mängd kapital som binds upp under sex år och alla kan av den anledningen inte investera.

To be able to understand future firm performance it is important to recognize and correctly evaluate what constitutes a signal. This study investigates if provisions contain signalling value regarding future firm performance. The study is conducted on firms listed on the Nasdaq OMX Stockholm from 2001 to 2010, constituting a sample of 2173 firm years. All the provision data has been manually collected from each of the firm’s annual reports. By using both univariate and multivariate analyses, the study provides new evidence regarding the association between provisions and firm performance. The findings indicate that firms who recognise restructuring provisions experience a performance improvement. The performance improvement is tied to the size of the restructuring provision i.e. the signal. Warranty and litigation provisions show no indications of having any relation to future firm performance. Thus, large restructuring provisions contain a signal of performance improvement, whereas warranty and litigation provisions do not. The thesis contributes to existing literature by providing new insight of how provisions functions as signals of firm performance

I have examined the common stock investments made by members of the U.S. Senate between 2006 and 2009. I find that the average stock portfolio in the Senate exhibits one and two year cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) of -0.15 % and 0.43%, respectively. This suggests that members of the Senate are not trading on insider knowledge as indicated by one previous researcher who calculated a one year CAR of 25%. However, my findings are in line with another previous researcher who found a one year CAR of about -2% and concluded that Congressmen are not trading on inside information. I also examine election-year trades made by senators who lose a reelection bid. This cashing out effect amounts to a CAR of 0.43% during the first year post loss, but after two years these trades exhibit a CAR of -0.03%. The cashing out group performs no better than the group as a whole, indicating that this group did not use their informational advantage to profit during the lame duck session.

Abstract The Profitability of Lean Six Sigma: A Study of National Grain Producers Inc. describes the different actions taken by NGP to take advantage of Lean Six Sigma and increase the company’s profitability. These actions are reviewed as investments to aid in assessing how beneficial they have been. This approach helps to quickly determine if what has been done within NGP so far as part of Lean Six Sigma has been successful which helps in deciding whether or not to continue the use of the LSS system.

The financial crisis has made the stock markets a very turbulent place. Investors have therefore begun searching for stable and profitable investments. Nordic real estate has for decades steadily increased in value and the stocks of real estate companies are said to be less risky than the market. This has led to a view of them being a safe haven for risk adverse investors. Very few empirical studies have been done on how these supposedly safe stocks actually behave in the Nordic countries. The purpose of this study is hence to investigate how these real estate companies stocks perform. The method employed is deductive and quantitative.One part of the research is to test whether or not the stocks are more profitable than the overall market. Additionally, motivated by previous research on market efficiency, this paper looks into if any predictable patterns for the real estate stocks returns can be found. In other words, if historical returns can be used to predict future returns. Thirdly this research paper looks into how risky the real estate stocks are compared to the market. For the last part of research, an examination on whether the usage of CAPM as a return calculator is appropriate for real estate stocks in the Nordic countries. The statistical tool SPSS and Microsoft Excel has been used to examine the relationships between the variables. The paper has used time series regression to find beta values and alpha values for risk assessments and tests of CAPM, and autocorrelation tests to determine market efficiency, or more precisely random walk.The research is are done on all real estate stocks on the Swedish, Finnish, Danish and Norwegian markets, a total of 31, over a time period of 10 years, between 2003 and 2013 on daily, weekly and monthly data. The result of the first part was that the real estate stock returns in general were not more profitable than the overall market. This research also found significant predictability of future returns through historical data on a daily basis, and some signs on a weekly basis while no predictability on a monthly basis. The result of the third part of the research is that the risk levels for the real estate stocks are different and in general much lower than the market risk. Lastly the test of CAPM shows no significant difference between the expected returns and the actual observed returns.

The stock market returns are the readily available tool for the investor to make investment decision and stock market return are affected by many accounting variables. Dividend policy measures and stock return relationship has been examined from decades but result is still a dilemma. This study is a step forward to solve this dilemma by considering Karachi stock exchange, Pakistan and Nordic stock markets and conducting a comparative study to also provide a knowledge base to readers. Dividend yield ratio, dividend payout ratio and other accounting variables are examined to find their effect on stock return. Pooled least square regression has been used on the data ranging from 2005-2008 and findings are different in different markets. Dividend policy measures (dividend yield ratio and dividend payout ratio) have significant effect on the stock return and in most countries there is significant negative relationship.