In this thesis, we will relax two major assumptions in economic growth theory. First of all, we will study growth models with eterogeneous capital goods, the so called vintage capital models: technological advances are not incorporated in all generations of capital goods and there is an optimal age distribution of the capital stocks. We will devote the three first chapters of this thesis to this class of models. Several lessons on technology diffusion will be extracted, notably in connection with the nowadays hot debate on energy saving, technology progress, growth and environmental policy. Secondly, we will introduce explicitly the geographical dimension to the neoclassical growth models, which allow us to build a new class of models. We call them geographic growth models. In this framework, we will identify the consequences of capital mobility across space. In particular, we will examine the optimal stationary distribution of capital across space. Under this framework, we could (i) study the continuous space structure, and (ii) allow capital accumulation.

Med denna studie har jag undersökt hur ett antal individer uppfattar symboler. Jag har närmre undersökt hur symboler kan användas för att kommunicera i det vardagliga sociala livet och vad detta tillför individerna. Syftet med detta var att dels utifrån nya exempel utöka befintlig information om och förståelse för hur individer använder symboler i sitt vardagliga liv. Syftet var även att få vetskap om hur Rörstrand och individerna kommunicerar symbolernas representation utifrån gemensamt kulturellt kapital och berättande. Detta har möjliggjorts genom semistrukturerade intervjuer som metod. Sex personer intervjuades samt Rörstrands Product and Marketing Manager Eva Tiedman. Intervjuerna och materialet har utformats och analyserats med hjälp av en teoretisk ram bestående av symbolisk interaktionism, storytelling, representation, nostalgi och retro. Studien resulterade i att Rörstrands kommunikation nått intervjupersonerna och att den breddat representationen av symbolerna men utan att mottagarna tydligt noterat detta då kommunikationen härrör från gemensamt kulturellt kapital. Detta resulterar i att producent och mottagare tillsammans kommunicerar produkternas representation och funktion. Studien bekräftar även att Rörstrands vision om vad produkterna tillför individer överensstämmer med intervjupersonernas upplevelser. Intervjupersonerna använder symbolerna för att kommunicera med sin omgivning i det vardagliga livet beroende på gemensamma representationer. Symbolerna ger upphov till positiva nostalgiska känslor, används för att bygga upp en scen på vilken man kan spela upp sin självbild och identitet samt skapar och upprätthåller sociala relationer.

Uppsatsen är skriven ur ett postmodernt och identitetsskapande perspektiv och handlar om hur designhistoria skapas i en nyutkommen vintagebok. Studien undersöker hur vintagebilder kan verka som en ny konstruktion av designhistoria. Detta undersöks genom semiotiska analyser av fem stycken bilder, hämtade ur boken Vintageparty (2013) och diskuteras sedan i relation till de sedvanliga designhistorieböckernas beskrivning. Resultatet tolkas utifrån identitetsskapande, postmodern och semiotisk teori. Undersökningen visar att vintagebokens skapare, vilka jag valt att kallar för bricholeurer1 själva kombinerat de föremål som finns med i bilderna. Istället för en traditionell designhistorisk beskrivning flyttas identitetsskapandet, genom design, ut i det offentliga rummet. Studien visar också att bilderna kan kopplas till postmodern stil, detta då bilderna visar upp eklektiska sammansättningar av föremål. Att ta till vara på olika föremål, genom att återvinna dem, visar på en miljövänlig designhistorik. Genom den identitetsskapande teorin, går det att konstatera att vintagebilderna till stor del konstruerar en individualitet, eftersom föremål valts ut och sammansatts så som skaparna av boken själva önskat. Kanske kan man påstå att bilderna skapar designhistoria på ett nytt sätt, i en ny skepnad?

In our globalized society massconsumption is widespread. However there is a trend showingthat people are starting to re-use clothes instead of buying newly produced garments. Reasonsfor buying secondhand clothing are many. During the 1950s people strived to look likeeveryone else but in the 1960s this changed. Subcultures grew stronger. People wanted toseparate themselves from the masses. Secondhand clothing became a way to showindividuality. The development of secondhand clothing has been fairly slow until about 10years ago when a shift in attitudes happened.The growing awareness of the environment has contributed to the expansion of thesecondhand market. Press and media’s focus on how the textile industry has affected theenvironment has made people aware of the consequences. This has led to an increasedtransparency for the commercial companies, but it has also increased the interest forsecondhand clothing. In a society where values like individuality and authenticity has becomemore important than ever before the secondhand market fills a need. The customers’ strive tobe unique can be satisfied by providing garments that are one-off pieces.The secondhand market is yet rather unexplored. We became interested in finding out who theactors on the secondhand market are and how they run their businesses. The problem that thestudy is based upon is; What is the business model for secondhand clothing? In this study thebusiness model is defined as the way a company organizes their resources to create business.To answer our question we did a field study in Buffalo, New York State (USA). The reasonfor choosing Buffalo was that the city has an interesting economical background and arelatively large variety of secondhand shops. Buffalo lost its heavy industry during the 1960sand 1970s. Because of that, the population declined. Parallels have been drawn betweenBuffalo as a “secondhand city” and the secondhand market.The study has had a qualitative method of research. The empirical part is based on semistructuredinterviews. The selections of respondents have been chosen after type of shop toget a broad perspective. During the interviews both film- and audio recording has beenconducted, which has later been analyzed and interpreted.Theory and empirical facts were connected in the analyses. Our conclusions are that thedifferent types of shops selling secondhand clothing have got different business models. Whatseparates the business model of vintage- and consignment shops from the model of thrift- andcharity shops is that they focus on the customer when they organize their resources. Thebusiness model of thrift shops is to offer value creating processes. The customer becomes aco-producer in the consumption process.The changing attitudes towards secondhand clothing have increased the demand for usedclothes. Tendencies show that companies have started to acknowledge this and thereforeadjust their offer, store locations and promotion. Because of this thrift shops have started toapproach the business model of the vintage- and consignment shops where the customer is infocus. This change has been more evident on the Swedish market, however we think that thiswill happen on the American market as well. This shows that when garments start to beselectively chosen and sold in central locations the price increase which in turn decrease thecustomer’s part of the value-creating process. / Program: Textilekonomutbildningen

To dress in used clothes is no longer considered as unfashionable. The acceptance of thesecond hand market has increased over the years. Vintage clothing has becomefashionable because you get the opportunity to create your own individual style. Vintagehas been given status. It has become a trend. You no longer call second hand clothing“second hand”; people tend to call it vintage even though it’s not.Our aim with this study is to determine whether or not vintage is a brand. We start fromthe consumer’s perspective when we examine the status and image as vintage received byconsumers. Later we compare the image of vintage with theories about brands and brandbuilding. Our aim is to find out if vintage can be named as a brand.Our study is qualitative and we have chosen to conduct qualitative interviews withvintage consumers in the state of New York. The essay has a hermeneutic and ahypothetical deductive research approach. The hypothetical deductive research approachsuited us well because we assumed that vintage is actually a brand name.We found that vintage is actually a brand name. The benefits the consumers consider thatvintage gives them can be compared with the added value a brand gives the consumer. Itis difficult to find a suitable definition of what a brand is. Even with the big marketingauthors disagree. According to Grönroos, Aaker and Kotler et al definition we believethat vintage is a brand and that is also our conclusion. Finally we think that thedefinitions of a brand are outdated and should be updated. This essay is conducted inSwedish. / Program: Textilekonomutbildningen

För företag som arbetar med måttlistor och skisser och låter mönstret skapas på en fabrik kan det vara problematiskt att få plaggen att sitta som man vill. Speciellt svårt kan det vara med ärmhål, ärmkullar och halshål. Jag har arbetat med ett sådant företag för att ta fram en kappa och klänning från designskisser i sextiotalsstil med modern passform i storlekarna XS-XL. Moderniseringen innebär till exempel mer rörelsevidd, inte spetsig byst och längre ärmar. Till detta skapas plaggmåttlistor, materialspecifikationer och plaggdelsdokument för att plaggen ska vara färdigt för att produceras på fabrik. Jag har utgått från grundkonstruktioner i både gammal och ny litteratur och följt upp med avprovning på provmodell/docka som jag gjort ändringar på tills en tillfredställande konstruktion blivit till. Denna har jag sedan graderat. I rapporten ingår en detaljbeskrivning av processen och de problem som uppstått. Då inget fabriksprov gjordes i det riktiga tyget är det osäkert om några ändringar kan behövas göras innan produktion men ett bra prov gjordes i liknande material. / Program: Designteknikerutbildningen

This thesis compares different approaches to estimating budgets for Kuhn-Tucker (KT) demand systems, more specifically for the multiple discrete-continuous extreme value (MDCEV) model. The approaches tested include: (1) The log-linear regression approach (2) The stochastic frontier regression approach, and (3) arbitrarily assumed budgets that are not necessarily modeled as a function of decision maker characteristics and choice-environment characteristics. The log-linear regression approach has been used in the literature to model the observed total expenditure as way of estimating budgets for the MDCEV models. This approach allows the total expenditure to depend on the characteristics of the choice-maker and the choice environment. However, this approach does not offer an easy way to allow the total expenditure to change due to changes in choice alternative-specific attributes, but only allows a reallocation of the observed total expenditure among the different choice alternatives. To address this issue, we propose the stochastic frontier regression approach. The approach is useful when the underlying budgets driving a choice situation are unobserved, but only the expenditures on the choice alternatives of interest are observed. The approach is based on the notion that consumers operate under latent budgets that can be conceived (and modeled using stochastic frontier regression) as the maximum possible expenditure they are willing to incur. To compare the efficacy of the above-mentioned approaches, we performed two empirical assessments: (1) The analysis of out-of-home activity participation and time-use (with a budget on the total time available for out-of-home activities) for a sample of non-working adults in Florida, and (2) The analysis of household vehicle type/vintage holdings and usage (with a budget on the total annual mileage) for a sample of households in Florida. A comparison of the MDCEV model predictions (based on budgets from the above mentioned approaches) demonstrates that the log-linear regression approach and the stochastic frontier approach performed better than arbitrarily assumed budgets approaches. This is because both approaches consider heterogeneity in budgets due to socio-demographics and other explanatory factors rather than arbitrarily imposing uniform budgets on all consumers. Between the log-linear regression and the stochastic frontier regression approaches, the log-linear regression approach resulted in better predictions (vis-à-vis the observed distributions of the discrete-continuous choices) from the MDCEV model. However, policy simulations suggest that the stochastic frontier approach allows the total expenditures to either increase or decrease as a result of changes in alternative-specific attributes. While the log-linear regression approach allows the total expenditures to change as a result of changes in relevant socio-demographic and choice-environment characteristics, it does not allow the total expenditures to change as a result of changes in alternative-specific attributes.

This thesis is a contribution to the analysis of the relationship between the economic growth and the usage of non-renewable energy resources. More precisely, it is studied the conditions under which energy-saving technologies can sustain long-run growth, even if energy is mainly produced by means of non-renewable energy resources, such as fossil fuels. A general equilibrium framework is considered, giving special attention to the dynamical properties of the economy. In accordance with the well-known debate of complementarity vs. substitutability between physical capital and energy as production inputs, this thesis is divided into two parts. The first part of this thesis assumes complementarity between physical capital and energy as production inputs, which captures the idea of the existence of a minimum energy requirement to use a machine. Even if in contrast with the standard literature on non-renewable energy resources, which assumes substitutability, the assumption of complementarity is indeed supported by various empirical studies. This relationship of complementarity allows one to introduce the assumption of different generations of machines coexisting in each period by adding a new variable to the firm's problem: physical capital replacement. In this first part of the thesis, it is provided a theoretical study of physical capital replacement, i.e., vintage effect, which is an important environmental policy when new machines are assumed to be more energy-saving. Following the standard literature on non-renewable energy resources, this second part of the thesis assumes substitutability between capital and energy. This branch of the literature gives central position to physical capital accumulation to offset the constraint on production possibilities due to use of non-renewable energy resources. This literature assumes the same technology for both physical capital accumulation and consumption, which implies (among other things) that the energy intensity of both sectors is the same. However, data do not support this implication and suggest that physical capital accumulation is relatively more energy-intensive than consumption. Following that, this second part of the thesis studies the implications of this hypothesis.

In this project a collection of clothes, based on the raggar culture has been developed. e work is intended to be a modernization of the clothing, exploring the subculture and developing it, however without loosing its attitude. In uences from other related subcultures have also taken part in the work. The aim is to investigate the technique of spray painting directly on garments, as a method for developing prints, taking visual inspiration from the culture of raggare. Sources for inspiration to the painting have been gra ti, airbrush and action painters. In order to keep the attitude of the raggar culture, the collection is largely based on vintage clothing, linked to the culture in question. e result in this project is a collection containing eight out ts, dedicated mainly to raggare but also to others.

Using data of first time fund in venture capital in United States from 1995 to 2015, I explore characteristics of the funds in relation to the fund performances. Three groups of characteristics that examined are fund characteristics, manager characteristics and limited partners’ characteristics. The paper also incorporates the time effects to show if market cycles have influences in these relationships. Some of the critical findings include that fund sizes have essentially zero impact on the fund return. In manager characteristics, it is very helpful to have a lead manager with MBA or equivalent degree. For limited partners, it is useful to have school endowments as limited partners which could influence the funds’ return positively. Both general partners and limited partners could learn from this paper and be more mindful of certain factor when investing in first time fund.