In the past years the traditional donors of development assistance have been increasingly aware of changes in the donor landscape. This as emerging economies like China and India has undergone a transition from recieving aid to becoming emerging donors. By identifying and comparing ideas, beliefs and interests pursued using foreign aid between so called emerging and traditional donors, the greater purpose of this thesis is to take a closer look at the alleged changes in the world order. The starting point is Goldstein & Keohanes framework of the impact of ideas and interests in foreign policy and the one of K.J Holsti about institutions as markers metrics of change. The results show that there is no vast difference in interests but a detectable difference in the ideas behind foreign aid.

Prescribed burning was commonly used for site preparation in Sweden to establish new forests until the 1960?s, when mechanical scarification was introduced. During recent decades the interest in prescribed burnings has increased again, mainly due to certifications of forestry stating that 5% of the regeneration areas should be burned on dry and mesic soils. The objective of the study was to evaluate actual influence of prescribed burning compared to other site preparation on stand stem density, growth parameters and tree damages for Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) after direct seeding and planting. The study also attempts to simulate growth until first thinning.

The main goal with this thesis report was to come up with ideas of how to make the use of energy more effective and thus save money for the company.First a survey was made to find out where and how the energy consumers were divided within the company. The results were then used in calculations to find out how much money that could be saved and how long it would take to get back the investments.There is a big potential in saving money by recovering heat from the UV-lamps with a heat exchanger. It would also even out the pressure in the factory which is a source to heat loss and a cause for discomfort amongst the employees. It?s possible to save 105 000 kr in a year and the money needed for the investments is 600 000 kr.By using the recovery air more effectively the company could save up to 250 000 kr a year in lowered heat purchases, but this would require the use of automatic dampers.If you reschedule the running times for the wood chipper and invest in some kind of load management, for example Sydkraft?s ?Energidirigent? you can save at least 42 000 kr.

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..

Title: Inflation and Investments, with Focus on Inflation-linked Bonds.Investors face many types of risks when allocating assets in a portfolio, e.g. volatility and inflation risk. Inflation risk will mainly affect investments in the long perspective. This thesis will examine those risks that an investor is commonly exposed to when allocating assets in a portfolio and in particular inflation-linked risk and how to eliminate it. We examine the correlation between different assets and inflation to determine the assets? ability to hedge inflation risk.

Background: The global capital markets have enlarged investment opportunities and thus also the sources of funds for companies which increasingly face global markets for their services and products. Huge capital movements show that investors are constantly searching ways to minimise risk and maximise returns. In the light of the substantial growth of assets in institutional funds, an important question for international finance is the degree to which institutional investors have diversified their portfolios internationally. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the international diversification of portfolio investments of institutional investors in Japan, the US and the UK and deepen into international diversification in portfolios of Japanese institutional investors. Demarcations: Institutional investors can use their power directly in companies or indirectly through capital markets.

For many companies, the Internet has revolutionized the relationship they have with their customers concerning costumer service. The use of Information Technology in regard to Internet as a media has provided companies with the opportunity to build customer databases in order to target their customers individually. The airline industry was one of the first pioneers to use the full potential of Internet to improve customer relations and its profits which we aim to investigate in greater detail in our thesis.Our thesis answers the question on how Scandinavian Airlines' (SAS) Eurobonus department uses their website to create valuable and profitable relationships with SAS loyalty club members through direct marketing. In order to answer our research question, three key informants have been interviewed - each representing different sub departments at Eurobonus; service and support, IT and marketing. Our results were that the Eurobonus department use direct marketing methods by sending customized e-mail offerings to target specific customer, using their customer databases.

This paper examines the existence of two different discourses on the causes of the wars in former Yugoslavia 1991-1995 in the editorial pages in Swedish newspapers. One discourse is titled "ancient hatreds" and explains the wars as a result of old historical ethnic conflicts typical of the "Balkans" and the second discourse, "poor political leadership," explains the wars as a result of deliberately conducted nationalistic policies by political leaders.Parallel to this discourse analysis is a media theory perspective of how news is selected and processed in the newspaper's editorial texts.The paper also examines the link between each discourse and a specific view on the necessity of foreign military intervention in former Yugoslavia.The starting point of the investigation are two high-profile events in 1995 and the impact they made in the 29 editorial texts in the metropolitan newspapers that were studied.The paper shows that none of the discourses clearly dominated in these editorial texts and that a clear link between a certain discourse and the advocated measure in the form of foreign intervention couldn´t be established in the material as a whole. However, the four texts that clearly belonged to the "ancient hatreds" discourse were all in favour of foreign military intervention.The essay concludes that there is evidence of a medial feedback which means that the news to a high degree influences what is discussed in the editorials and that the evaluation and selection of news, is similar in all the studied newspapers..

Less diversity and more homogenization in the media`s news range is the subject for our bachelor thesis. By analyzing and comparing three separate weeks in two of Sweden's largest evening newspapers Aftonbladet and Expressen we wanted to discoverhow the diversity between the two newspapers had changed over the years, more precisely from 1993 until now. Had there been a homogenization or not? We wanted to study this because it is a long going debate about the news stories becoming more and more the same. An important debate because less diversity in news events and news presentation may lead to less diversity in public opinions and knowledge.

The background to the work bases on the consumers view around Swedish and foreign meat products, and how the attitude around the meat products is pursued in the shops. The consumers request high meat quality and security . Many consumers value local produced and ecological meat products but the price is too high. We have done verbal interviews with consumers on three different shops, where we asked questions and had dialogues around Swedish meat products where the consumers have told us their arguments and opinions about Swedish and foreign meat. The result shows that the majority of consumers consider that it is important to know that meat is produce in Sweden.

In this thesis a method for evaluating investments in small scale hydro power is presented. An analysis of the future position that small scale hydro production will have on the Nordic electricity market is also carried out. This is done by an inventory of technology and economic and environmental aspects. The inventory is also a guide as to how the project should be implemented.Hydrolyzer is the name of the Excel tool developed to evaluate investments. The tool requests input data from the user and then evaluates the investment and generates a sensitivity analysis.

Over the past few years the Swedish forestry industry has become increasing interested in direct seeding. Although, in practice, this interest has been restricted to pine seed, the knowledge and techniques that have been developed for pine seeding can readily be transferred to spruce. Direct seeding is a method that is of interest to the forestry industry since it can lead to lower regeneration costs, denser stands and better root development than the more conventional planting method. This study evaluated experiments that focused on direct seeding of spruce in the northern Sweden. Skogforsk set-up the experiments in Gideå and Sävar in 2003.

The concerning issue of declining number of hunters in North America is also apparent in Europe and Sweden. When the bulk of research found on human dimensions and hunting participation has almost exclusively been done in the United States, this report seeks to add to the needed knowledge on a national level focusing on the causes of hunter declines related to social factors within Sweden. Using hunter data reaching from commune, county to National level, this report describes the correlation between a number of variables and the hunting participation in Sweden.The typical Swedish hunter lives in an area with low population density, the person usually has higher education, the living situation is stable with no recent moving and there is relatively good access to forest land. Persons with weaker connection to the Swedish culture such as foreign citizens, people with foreign background and people born outside ?the Nordic countries? are less likely to start hunt or participate in hunting.A strong relationship was found between the favorite game, moose (Alces alces), and the amount of hunters participating in the hunting.

The translation of financial records of foreign subsidiaries gives rise to currency translation adjustments that affect total group equity. If unwanted, fluctuations in translation adjustments can be avoided using net investment hedges. This study aims to find the extent of net investment hedging in Sweden today and in a short historical perspective, and find explanations to varying levels of hedging and firms' decisions to hedge. Based on annual reports, we determine Swedish firms' net investment hedging policies and their level of hedging. The 32 largest companies listed on the Stockholm stock exchange in the years 1993, 2004, 2006, and 2009 are studied.

FDI har sedan början på 80-talet växt sig allt större och blivit en av de viktigaste tillgångarna till finansiellt och fysiskt kapital i världen. FDI har enligt många studier en viktig funktion för ett lands ekonomiska utveckling, detta gäller främst för outvecklade länder men också utvecklade länder. Studiens mål var att hitta viktiga faktorer som påverkade FDI inflöde till Sub-Sahara regionen. Den empiriska analysen gjordes med hjälp av en OLS regressionsmodell och hade 42 observationer sammanlagt. Huvudvariabeln var FDI/BNP.