This paper evaluates the effect of exchange rate risk on the sum of bilateral trade. To distinguish the effect between different types of countries, two groups are defined: advanced and developing economies. Economic theory on exchange rate risk and trade proposes ambiguous effects of increased volatility. However, the ex ante hypothesis is that developing economies are more sensitive to volatility. Contrarily to the hypothesis, the empirical results suggest that advanced economies would benefit up to twice as much from a removal of exchange rate risk.

During recent years, financial innovation has given rise to numerous structured investment opportunities aimed towards the general public. These have enabled private investors to engage in high-risk investments offering as much as 400 per cent leverage while oftentimes not fully having grasped the risk involved. The issuers of these securities have been criticized for using advertising of a too aggressive and misleading nature.By presenting 819 potential investors with two different investment opportunities yielding the same return over a six day period, we have aimed to assess whether the inclination of being affected by judegmental heuristics varies with factors such as knowledge, overall attitude towards the asset class, risk appetite and experience from previous investments.We have observed that investors' perception of the attractiveness of an investment can be distorted by altering the information presented to the investor. However, our findings show that this tendency decreases with an increased level of knowledge, experience and risk appetite..

Bakgrund och problem: Majoriteten av försäljningen mellan företag, samt mellan företag och offentlig sektor sker via handelskrediter. Detta leder till att företagen ofta blir utsatta för risker i form av sena och uteblivna betalningar. I sådana situationer finns det behov av riskreduceringsmekanismer som ska reducera och minimera dessa risker. Mekanismerna för reducering av risker har vi fördelat i två kategorier, privata och offentliga. Avsikten med uppsatsen är att undersöka vilka av dessa mekanismer som har störst inverkan på beviljandet av handelskrediter.

To understand the motives, and perhaps more importantly the barriers, for farmers to convert from conventional to organic farming is of great interest for policy makers as well as for academics. In Sweden and in other EU countries, proposed targets of the area in organic farmland have failed to be reached in spite of different kinds of policy measures. Most studies agree that the average profitability seems to be comparable to or better in organic than in conventional farming. This would indicate that there must be other factors of importance which can explain the low particiapation rate. A higher perceived risk in organic farming with respect to yield and price is frequently brought up as a potential explanation within a qualitative framework.

This paper presents a project and literature overview about how risk management and quality sometimes goes hand in hand and sometimes in two different directions. Meaning that the risk management can affect product or process quality differently depending on what risks an organisation chooses to control.The purpose with this paper is to get a deeper understanding about how risk and quality works together with IT-support and therefore we have been actively participating in a project with a risk management company called Zert. A literature study and a qualitative interview study have also been undertaken to see what the customers and the other researchers have written, to be able to make proper conclusions on the subject.To easily work together and get the information that was needed, four methods where used. Besides the qualitative interview and literature study the think-out-loud, card sorting and a variation on the extreme programming method where used to help visualize and improve communication both with Zert, the costumers and among ourselves.Zert is a risk management company that helps other organisations to control their different types of risks that they might be taking, by offering a system where the risk management process is held and providing consulting services by helping within the processes. Both Zert and their customers see the communication, knowledge and teamwork as something important as well as the quality within the work, processes and the end result.

In April 2010 Vägverket (the Swedish National Road Agency) andBanverket (the Swedish National Railway Agency) will merge intoTrafikverket (the Swedish National Traffic Agency). Trafikverket willassume unified responsibility for the risk management that atpresent is responsibility of Vägverket and Banverket separately. Atpresent, as it will be shown in this thesis, Vägverket and Banverketshare the same theoretical background for risk management but usedifferent implementations often within the same agency. The use ofdifferent implementations results in a reduced transparency of therisk management both within and outside the agencies: this willbecome even more problematic when they will be fused intoTrafikverket.The aim of this thesis is to review the current risk managementmethodologies used at Vägverket and Banverket and to suggest aunified tool for the risk management at Trafikverket. This will bedone by focusing in particular on construction projects, one fromVägverket (Partihallsförbindelsen) and one from Banverket(Nynäsbanan).

Internationaliseringen har ökat under de senaste åren, och företag väljer att lägga delar av verksamheten utomlands. Tidigare forskning undersöker sambandet mellan denna diversifiering och dess konsekvenser för företagen. Gränsöverskridande diversifiering och företagsförvärv bör enligt tidigare forskning ge en lägre systematisk risk då risken sprids ut över flera marknader.Syftet med studien är att se om tidigare forsknings resultat går att tillämpa idag när svenska företag gör gränsöverskridande företagsförvärv. Vi har valt att applicera en event study-metodik för att undersöka detta samband enligt marknadsmodellen. Studien undersöker 66 svenska fall av gränsöverskridande företagsförvärv, gjorda under perioden 2005 ? 2007.Resultatet visar att tidigare empiri, att företagen skulle ha lägre systematisk risk efter ett gränsöverskridande företagsförvärv, inte går att tillämpa idag på de svenska företagen.

The aim of this small thesis is to investigate if the probability of business failure is higher at the time of divestment than at the time of acquisition for portfolio companies that have been subject to private equity ownership. The background for this thesis is the widespread critique aimed at private equity firms, claiming that they increase the risk in their portfolio companies. We have performed a study of 53 buyout transactions, involving Swedish manufacturing companies, covering a time span of 13 years, from 1995 to 2007. We find evidence of an increased risk of business failure for the portfolio companies with a short forecasting horizon (within one year). The absolute increase in the sample is however small.

The thesis had its starting point in the first paragraph of the eleventh chapter in the Swedish social services act, which discusses the immediate risk assessments that has to be made when the social services receive a report about a child. The thesis highlights an area that has received a lot of attention in media since the spring of 2014, when an eight year old girl was fatally abused by her legal guardians. The social services had at the time received a report about the girl but it was left unread. This tragic case has brought attention to the routines used by the social services for dealing with reports and risk assessments. This thesis was conducted through individual interviews with social workers working with children and families in the social services, with the aim to acquire an enhanced understanding of how social workers perform immediate risk assessments and what these assessments are based on.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the status of Swedish real estate companies in terms of financial health and risk of financial distress. The background is the ongoing financial crisis, which partly can be derived from the American real estate sector. Publicly available accounting information from 16 listed real estate companies has been analyzed for a period of one year using financial ratios covering both the operational and financial activities. We find that the deceleration in the economy and in the real estate sector have forced the real estate companies to make large write downs, in line with the relatively new accounting rules, IFRS. Write downs are likely to reoccur during the following periods and real estate companies will therefore probably be forced to continue to show negative results.

Det här är en kvantitativ studie av hur kreditpreferenser hos mikrobolag med en årsomsättning om mindre än 10 miljoner SEK beror av branschtillhörighet och företagsstorlek. Mikrobolag är små bolag med mindre än 10 personer anställda och en årsomsättning på mindre än 2 miljoner euro. Det teoretiska ramverket utgår från asymmetrisk informationsteori och mer specifikt från pecking order theory, POT samt trade off-teorin. Kreditpreferenserna mäts genom två olika parametrar, dels genom mikrobolagens avsättning till periodiseringsfonder vilket kan ses som ett mellanting mellan extern och intern finansiering, dels genom förekomsten av externa lån från kreditinstitut. Branscherna som undersöks är tillverkning samt tjänster vilka anses skilja sig åt vad gäller kreditpreferenser.

In this report a systematic working procedure for risk classification of processing equipment from a maintenance point of view is described. How this system has been worked out is also an important part of the report. The classification system is adapted for use in complex processing plants. Preemraff Göteborg has been subject for the underlying study and application of the system.The system aims to give a good overview of the maintenance related risks at the plant. Furthermore, the analysis result is a good motivation for the suggested maintenance activities and as motivation for extended or decreased maintenance resources in total.

In Sweden more than 400 000 private households have not yet sufficient wastewater purification. These effluent is considered as an increasing problem and many onsite purification methods have been studied. In this investigation, the method of reactive bed filters have been tested by column and batch experiments. Five different kinds of filter materials with reactive surfaces have been studied concerning their capacity to absorb ammonium and phosphorus from wastewater. The materials that were examined are Filtra N, wollastonite Filtra P, blast furnace slag and Polonite®.

Analys av portföljer, sammansatta av hög-, mellan- och lågrisk aktier..

Previous research regarding the European debt crisis has mostly focused on the purely economic aspects of the crisis. However, there is a strong ?Protestant-Catholic? dimension in Europe, where historically Protestant countries are more prosperous than their Catholic and Orthodox counterparts. This has especially been a fact since early 2010, when several countries within the European Union had their credit ratings downgraded. Is this phenomenon merely a coincidence? Or could the roots of the recent troubles in Europe have a basis in historic religions? To tackle this question, Max Webers ?s 110 year old study The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism is brought back into light and used as a tool for analysis of the crisis.The results show that not only are Protestant countries in general more prosperous, but they also have lower corruption and their citizens have a higher level of trust towards the government.