The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between Earnings Management (EM) and certain characteristics of management forecasts, among a sample of Swedish listed companies. The forecast characteristics studied are: 1) Forecast venue: How explicitly is the forecast presented? 2) Forecast precision: How detailed is the estimated number? 3) Forecast measure: Which measure(s) are forecasted? We use a sample of 68 annual management forecasts, obtained from year-end reports between the years 2007-2011. EM during the forecasted year (2008-2012) is estimated using the cross-sectional modified-Jones model. The forecast characteristics are then related to the degree of EM during the forecasted period.

Foreseeing future changes in economic activity is of up most importance to a wide array of actors. The time lag in the presentation of official GDP statistics means that to somewhat accurately capture a tendency of where the business cycle is heading one need turn to qualitative sentiment indicators such as Purchasing Managers? Index (PMI) and official sentiment indicators for valuable clues. This thesis uses in-sample and out-of-sample methods to evaluate how well PMI and official Business Tendency Surveys (BTS) in Sweden and Denmark fair against the year-on-year growth rate of industrial production. Moreover, various Swedish regional sentiment indicators get examined and a case study of the indicator for the Öresund region is performed.

Volvo in Arvika produces wheel loaders, and the production is based on forecasts. When a machine is ordered, the customer can choose what type of equipment he or she wants, and these equipments are also made forecasts on. This is made by giving each equipment an estimated procentual usage that shows how many of the machines that will use this option. Today two people are working with the forecasts, planer A in Eskilstuna and planer B in Arvika. Planer A makes a forecast based on the historical outcome and planer B then makes adjustments of this based on how many options that are ordered.

The high debt levels experienced in European Countries have lead to academic interest in the deficit bias -the tendency for governments to run budget deficits and accumulate debt. In part one of this thesis a surveyof the economic literature on the origins and solutions to the deficit bias are conducted. The proposedinstitutional solution to the deficit bias in the form of Fiscal Policy Councils (FPC) are outlined and existingEuropean FPCs presented. Based on the works of Calmfors and Wren-Lewis (2011) the EuropeanCommission (EC) is defined as an FPC. Based on this survey, two hypothesis are formulated: (1) theforecasts of future macro-economic events and fiscal performance will differ between the national FPCs andthe national government.

This report evaluates whether normal approximation or resampling is to prefer for estimating the distribution of the sample mean and functions of the sample mean. The evaluation relies on simulation studies. The observations of the sample are allowed to be differently distributed. In the case of sample means they are also allowed to be dependent.For sample means the two approximations behaves very similar. The most important component whether we have a good or a bad approximation is how good the approximations catch the variance of the true distribution.

This report evaluates whether normal approximation or resampling is to prefer for estimating the distribution of the sample mean and functions of the sample mean. The evaluation relies on simulation studies. The observations of the sample are allowed to be differently distributed. In the case of sample means they are also allowed to be dependent.For sample means the two approximations behaves very similar. The most important component whether we have a good or a bad approximation is how good the approximations catch the variance of the true distribution.

This study compares the sample variance of the mean in a simple random sample (SRS) and a systematic sample from a surface. The study also compares the prediction error variance in a SRS and systematic sample from a random field. Recommendations are presented on which method to use in the clearance and exemption process in the nuclear industry. The results indicate that quadratic systematic sampling outperformed SRS in most instances and proved to be especially efficient in the presence of a long-ranged covariance function and high sampling intensity (i.e. short distances between observations).

This report evaluates whether normal approximation or resampling is to prefer for estimating the distribution of the sample mean and functions of the sample mean. The evaluation relies on simulation studies. The observations of the sample are allowed to be differently distributed. In the case of sample means they are also allowed to be dependent.For sample means the two approximations behaves very similar. The most important component whether we have a good or a bad approximation is how good the approximations catch the variance of the true distribution.

Background: An evaluation of analysts´ forecasting ability is interesting since their estimates constitute an important part in stock valuation and investment decisions. The recent years´ development in the stock market has lead to criticism of analysts? deficient forecasts. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate analysts´ forecasting ability concerning companies quoted at Stockholmsbörsen between 1987 and 2002. We also intend to discuss possible explanations for analysts? behavior in case of deficient accuracy.

The purpose of this master thesis is to evaluate how the current share price and market consensus affect security analysts target price and if an investor should pay any attention to it. Empirical data is primarily collected from qualitative interviews with ten security analysts but also from a quantitative e-mail survey. Our main finding is that security analysts are indeed affected by each others earnings forecasts as well as the current share price. This is not strange, it is in several aspects rational. Security analysts has often nothing to gain by standing out too much and not either by spending too much time trying to create their own opinions due to lack of time or the complexity of what is analyzed.

The agricultural plantingmachines are used just a few weeks every year. That means that the supply of service and spare parts have to be good to make the timeliness costs low at the agricultural hard working periods. The machines wear down successivly when they are used. The wear is harder on some parts than the others on a machine. Spare parts can be dicided into consumables.

In this essay we aim at finding an appropriate flash estimator of the quarterly Swedish private consumption (PK). With the aid of the statistics program TRAMO we study if monthly data from the consumer survey (HIP) and retail industry (DH) can be used in a transfer function model (TFM) to forecast PK. In the work of assessing the state of the market and the business trend, fast information from the national accounts is needed for making decisions for the economic politics in Sweden. A way to speed up the information process is to use leading economic indicators to asses this development. Another way to get information faster is to use a flash estimate.

The project was conducted during a period from November 2014 to January 2015 at the company Westermo Teleindustri AB (WTE). The subject of the project was to make an inventory more efficient. The inventory was located at WTE, but was owned by the subsidiary Westermo Sverige (WSE).The inventory had a high amount of tied up capital. This was due to products that hadn?t been sold.

A sample of milk inoculated with S. aureus was treated with penicillin, and Antipen (a new commercial product containing penicillinase) was added. To another sample with S. aureus and penicillin, formic acid to pH 5 was added, and to yet another sample, a combination of formic acid and Antipen was added. Controls with no penicillin were treated in the same way.

Wind is used as an energy source all over the world. To be able to use this effectively, there is a need for as good forecasts and forecast models as possible. One of these models is Coupled Ocean/Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System (COAMPS®) that is used to calculate short time forecasts. This model is used here to calculate wind speeds at two different areas in Västra Götaland, Bengtsfors and Vänersborg. There are also wind measurements with SODAR stations for these areas.