This is a qualitative study about child poverty within the school environment. The purpose is to examine how financial resources can affect the social standings of teenagers and how that affects them in school; how the school system view and work with child poverty as well as how they act within the legal framework that requires the school to be free of charge. This was done through analyzing earlier research and conducting five interviews with personnel at three schools for children ages 13-15. Our results show that social standing can be affected by a lack of financial resources, partially due to not having certain mobile phones or brand clothing, partially because they cannot afford to join in on social activities. Furthermore, teenagers view child poverty as shameful and a risk factor for social exclusion.

This master thesis concerns whether Swedish non-financial listed firms act in accordance with the optimal capital structure theory and/or pecking order theory. The examined period is 1998-2004 and we discover that Swedish companies neither follow optimal capital structure theory nor pecking order theory. From our results we conclude that there exists no single point of the capital structure which is optimal. Rather it seems as if the optimal point lies in-between an interval from 0 to the industry average, where firms tend to be indifferent to their debt-ratios. Our results show that Swedish companies prefer internal financing followed by equity and as last choice debt issuance..

Every tenth year a financial crisis tend to interfere with an economy. Price bubbles with an accompanying market plunge are therefore not a new phenomenon. Such market disruptions have been causing problems for centuries, as history has a tendency to repeat itself. The intention with this study is to learn more about the bubble phenomenon and increase the knowledge in this area in order to, if possible, prevent such a thing from happening again. The purpose of the essay is to identify factors that significantly affected the development of the so called IT-bubble in Sweden and Finland during the years of 1995-2000.

Previous studies have shown that there is a relationship between voluntary disclosure and analysts' forecast accuracy. However, there has been no research conducted specifically on bridges. Bridges contain information on how components such as price, volume, foreign exchange rates and acquisitions have impacted the financial performance between two periods. The main purpose of this thesis is to investigate the usage of bridges in quarterly financial information of companies listed on Nasdaq Stockholm. We provide a descriptive mapping of bridges and find that 30 out of 268 companies are presenting bridges as a part of their voluntary disclosures, with large firms being the most frequent users.

The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate and develop a useful theory of human behavior that recognizes the importance of our emotions. The new framework, called the theory of emotional choice, is developed by a holistic method in which results from the fields of psychology, sociology and (neuro-) biology are used to mutually support the conclusions. The theory is distilled into six preliminary points, which are based on the finding that we are not thinking as logical, rational and longsighted as is often assumed. Instead the regular human thinking is suggested to be shortsighted, intuitive and ruled by our emotions and our needs for generality, causality and normality.To demonstrate the usefulness of the new framework, it is used in an analysis of financial bubbles. Additionally, the fields of negotiation, election and ethics are suggested as potentially interesting to analyze with the new theory..

As a consumer, you can use cards for payment more or less everywhere you go, however, it is not certain that the card can be used for all purchases. When a customer pays with card there arises a card transaction fee charged to the merchant. This is a big problem for businesses where transactions with small amounts are a large portion of sales. An observation at the beginning of this study showed that seemingly similar merchants have chosen to solve this problem in different ways. Some merchant?s refuses card purchases below a certain amount, while others accept card with any purchase.

The objective of this thesis is to examine the capital structure of Swedish small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Accounting data from Swedish game developers, combined with the result from a survey, is used to examine their financial conditions and capital structure decisions. We find that non-debt tax shield, firm size, growth opportunities and age are, to various extents, the determinants of capital structure in the game industry, while effective tax rate and asset structure have marginal effects. Our study also implicates that most of the existing capital structure theories can explain SMEs leverage decisions to some extent; however, some adaptation is needed to fit these theories into the SME context. Additionally, we find the existence of a financial gap in the game industry which might need efforts from both demand side and supply side to eliminate..

In this paper I argue that the development of innovation ideas within the financial system of scientific research might have a counterpart within the financial system of the social sciences and the arts. The ideas of innovation share a common way to evaluate science in terms of how well it can contribute to economic growth. In the past two decades a similar development can be observed within Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (RJ), one of the largest external financiers of the social sciences and the arts in Sweden. The idea of evaluating research used by the innovation ideas has grown popular within RJ, only it seems they evaluate research in terms of how well it fits into an international research community rather than how much it can contribute to economic growth as is the case within the innovation ideas. By examining the different ways of financing research that RJ has used during the last 2 decades, this paper aims to introduce a new perspective in which it is possible to understand the development within this type research funding as a part of a bigger system of development..

Purpose: We have three purposes that will answer our problem questions. Our first purpose is to identify how diversification effects for investors changed between emerging markets and developed markets in the period 1996-2010. Our second purpose is to examine the two crises, IT and financial crisis, and if the correlations between these two crises have changed. Our third purpose is to examine to what extent the Swedish stock market was influenced by other markets in the period 1996-2010, the IT and financial crisis.Methodology: The method is based on an analytic model consisting of two tools; Regression- and Correlation analysis. The Regression analysis will be used when investigating if a change in a foreign stock market affects a change on the Swedish stock market.

Families with limited financial resources risk social exclusion in today?s consumption-based society, where status and identity are tied to items like clothing, gifts and activities. Limited financial resources can therefore often lead to social isolation because consumption is central to social participation, something that can rarely be prioritized in poor families. In preschool, unclear policies on extra costs can negatively affect families. The purpose of the study was to investigate how socioeconomically vulnerable families experience and are affected by the preschool and its requirements, as well as how preschool teachers work to reduce the economic gap among families in the preschool context.

The first of January 2005 all companies listed on a stock exchange within the European Unionhad to implement International Financial Accounting Standards (IFRS) in their annual report.But is this regulation for the good or worse and does the benefits outweigh the cost? The goalwith the regulation is to make it easier for investors, shareholders and other stakeholders tomake financial decisions, compare domestic as well as international companies at the samecondition. One of the differences with the introduction of the new regulation is IFRS 3 thathandles business combination and how goodwill and intangible assets from the acquiredcompany should be accounted for. The objectives of our dissertation is to identify those listedcompanies that have made one or more acquisition between the years 2005 to 2006 andmeasure their level of disclosure concerning goodwill and intangible assets through theacquisition. We concluded trough the results that positive accounting theory and systemorientated theory didn?t explain all the verities in the companies? disclosures.

Aim: The analysis model was introduced after several audit-scandals in order to enhance the confidence in the auditors? independence. Our purpose with this essay is to find out if the auditors experience that the stakeholders? confidence in their review of the financial information has increased as a result of the analysis model. We also strive to describe the function of the analysis model in order to give the reader a deeper understanding in this subject.Method: The scientific approch we have used in this essay is a qualitative survey method, in order to find out the auditors opinion and attitude regarding the analysis model and whether the stakeholders? confidence in the financial information has increased as a result of its introduction.

Recent corporate challenges require effective communication in order to secure a company?s reputation. Companies as a result, need to be committed to a series of corporate social and environmental practices along with their financial commitments to their shareholders and investors. In fact, businesses are required to go above their ordinary operations and involve all potential stakeholders that can be affected by their strategies. Companies also need to communicate social, environmental and economic consequences of their activities along with their CSR commitments to their internal and external stakeholders in order to make a better corporate image and improve their market opportunities.

In three areas in the province of Småland studies has been done to investigate how big damage the moose may do to P. abies. An inquiry examination and two different types of surveys were done to find out how big area, which volume and which financial consequences the moose debarking has had on the forest. When the volume was calculated the rot spreading was included. The area that was damaged was stipulated with the answers from the inquiry examination. 59 % of the asked forest owners answered the inquiry.

Purpose:The background to this study is an upcoming sale of a property. Owner of the property is currently city of Gävle and tenant is Jan Ekroth who runs the hostel Gamla Gefle in the buildings belonging to the property. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether Gamla Gefle AB has the financial ability to acquire the property and if it can be defended in a commercial plane.Method:In this study a qualitative method has been used, in which empirical data has been gathered from interviews and financial data taken from annual reports. These empirical data have been put against our theoretical framework and led to our analysis. In the analysis, cash flows and discounted future values have been calculated to determine the outcome of the investment.Results & conclusion:The study reaches the conclusion that the hostel Gamla Gefle should complete its acquisition of the property, in spite of an decrease of the annual cash flow.