Common wisdom dictates that because payment of dividends decreases funds available for investment, a high payout ratio is to be associated with low earnings growth. This notion has been challenged in recent years by empirical research that has found a positive relationship between payout ratio and future earnings growth, both on the aggregated market level and the company level in different countries. This study investigated the aforementioned relationship on the Swedish market by statistically analyzing future earnings growth as a function of payout ratio on a large sample of publicly listed companies over the period 1980 to 2011. The results are in line with those found in previous research and indicate that companies with high dividend payout ratio tend to experience strong future earnings growth. The results are robust to the presence of mean reversion, the use of an alternative accounting measure of earnings, non-symmetrical earnings growth cycles and alternative practices for dealing with outliers..

This thesis is an attempt to study computer games and playful computer programs for childrenand youth at Swedish public libraries. The main method used, is qualitative interviews.The main reason the libraries in the study offer computer games and playful computer programsto their users, is that every member of the society shall have opportunity to use newtechnology such as computers and computer programs. The users of this media are for themost part boys. The librarians in our study wish to have pedagogical games and programswithout violent themes at their libraries. Lending computer games and computer programs isnot of any priority for the libraries..

Title: Territorial identities and fusions- regional identity by interregional fusions Level: Final assignment for Bachelors Degree in Social Science with specialization in Urban and Regional Planning. Major subject: Geography. Author: Mladen Krajisnik Supervisor: Carl-Johan Nordblom Date: 2009 May Intention: The main focus of this study is to verify the existence, or nonexistence, of local and regional identities. Considering the result regarding regional identities, this thesis will continue on to clarify if these identities are to be seemed as a threat or resource during fusions, and if so, how can one best manage these different identities.Method: Only secondary data has been used in this study. I've botanized amongst the literature that processes fusions, impact of culture, identities, regions, territory. Continuing on, the collected empirical resources have been compared to my theory, from which an analysis was able to be spawned and conclusions were drawn.Result & Conclusions: The thesis confirms different regional identities, although it does not treat the subject regarding the inner strength of regions comparing to one another.

The purpose of this study is to ? through a discourse analysis ? examine how the parliamentary committee ? Ansvarskommittén ? legitimizes the need for merging administrative regions. The committee?s investigation is what underlies the present debate on regionalisation and the merging of regions in Sweden. To carry out this discourse analysis, I have used ?What?s the problem represented to be??, by Carol Lee Bacchi as an analytical framework.

The purpose of this thesis has been to build a parameterized model of a prototype motor in the program Solidworks, to use in future optimization of aspects of effectiveness and weight. The result were two models. The first model were one minor part of the whole design in 2D, to be able to optimize and study the minor part with a faster loss simulation. The second model was the whole design in 3D. The whole model were done with the three programs Solidworks, Comsol and Matlab.

Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to study the causal relationship between bank sector development and economic growth in four Nordic countries (Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway).Method: Our thesis is based on a quantitative method. The study consists of a compilation and analysis of key financial indicators that represent economic growth and bank sector development. A Granger causality test has been conducted on the time series in order to measure the causal link between economic growth and bank sector development.Theoretical framework: The study is based on the theory of endogenous growth and the causal relationship between bank sector development and economic growth also known as the demand following and supply leading hypothesis. Results: The results of the four countries are ambiguous. Except for Denmark, that follows the supply leading hypothesis, the remaining countries do not show a unanimous result..

The aim ofthis study was to examine how economic growth affects the level of democracy inauthoritarian states. Some of these states have experienced high economicgrowth. However, one can discuss how it affects the country?s democratization-process.For that reason this study was needed to contribute to a clarification of howeconomic growth can affect authoritarian rule and democratization. This wasdone through an examination of the development in China.

The European Union is a 60 year long collaboration between the European countries. It was born from the intention to ease trade and thereby reassure peace. Within the 60 years EU has functioned it has developed and expanded further. In 1952 it evolved around the trade of coal and steel between six countries, today it includes 27 nations and oversees a large number of topics such as foreign affairs, a common currency and regional politics. EU has grown at several times, the latest expansion was the largest where 12 new countries became members. The unions of countries that only 60 years ago were at different sides of a world war can be considered an accomplishment.

The main objective of this study was to investigate the possible design of a horticultural therapy program in Swedish correctional treatment facilities. In the USA the use of horticultural therapy in offender rehabilitation is much more frequent compared with Sweden. The aim of these programs typically contains education for inmates. Research has been made indicating that these programs can have positive effects on psychosocial behavior and on vulnerability to substance abuse among incarcerated offenders. In this study the examples of these programs was categorized and analyzed from three perspectives; Vocational, social and therapeutic horticultural programs.

In this thesis we have examined if some young people's identity is influenced by television programs. We chose to illustrate this from a gender perspective and have made use of social construction theory. We did group interviews with 13 youngsters, in three groups, to find out how much insight they had in what they watch, if they believe that they are affected and how they believe that gender roles in television programs often look. Our questions are: Does young people's identity take influence of the TV program? How? Creates a social construction of gender in the television programs that young people are watching? Is there awareness among young people on what they watch and how is this in this case out? Important to emphasize is that our results are not necessarily representative of youngsters in general when we only had the opportunity to interview a few.

As well as other politic fields, the cultural politics adapt to changes in society. The development in society has brought attention to the interaction between the cultural field and the economic field. One of the main goals within Swedish Cultural Policies today is the development of cultural and creative economics. Politicians and researchers claim that culture can be a significant part in economic growth in cities and making a place attractive to live in.I became interested in the discussion around the cultural experience as a factor of economic growth when I participated in a seminar at Karlstad CCC during Kulturparlamentet 2012. When I then started working at the music festival Putte i Parken during the spring of 2013 I thought about making this study.The main aim is to investigate in which way Putte i Parken can be a factor of growth and a factor of making Karlstad an attractive place to live in by analyzing documents, reports and literature in a qualitative way of working.

The purpose of this study is to make a close and critical scrutiny of the EU Lisbon Strategy and the assumption of `sustainable growth´. A basic question is to clarify what is meant by `sustainability´ in the economic and the environmental dimension respectively, and also, to analyse the meaning of `sustainable growth´. Secondly, I try to investigate the relationship between the economical and environmental dimensions of the strategy. Are the goals of the dimensions compatible and mutually supporting or are they conflicting? By illuminating these issues the study moves towards a final set of questions: What are the arguments that encourage or counteract the Lisbon assumption of `sustainable growth´? Is the European Union approaching `sustainable growth´ looking at different economical and ecological indicators? What are the prospects for the Lisbon Strategy as a way towards global `sustainable development´?.

Development of morphs within European whitefish (Coregonus lavaretus), might be considered as a beginning of a sympatric speciation process. Unpublished data suggests that presence of the keystone piscivore northern pike (Esox lucius) is the main driver of sympatric divergence in European whitefish (Coregonus lavaretus). Using introduced whitefish populations as controlled experiments, it is possible to determine when different characters diverge in the speciation process. In this study, I analysed age and growth within European whitefish populations of different age to assess if these characters change over time in absence of pike. With using otoliths from whitefish populations of different age, I was possible to determine individual age, and by measuring the length of the fish, growth was calculated.

Many sources point to the same conclusion; throughout the history the research sphere, mass media, governmental industry policies and public life in common have not paid the same attention to medium-sized companies as to small, new or large companies in Sweden. Yet, there are some researchers claiming the need for the medium-sized companies to grow, becoming tomorrow?s Swedish new large companies. Hence, the need for understanding the specific growth conditions of the medium-sized companies are definitely clear. This study aims firstly to identify whether there are specific requirements and obstacles for growth in connection to being a medium-sized company.

Trees of Bergvik apple (Bergviksäpple) planted between 2001 and 2007 have shown varying harvest. This study investigates why some trees gets low or no harvest while others get significantly higher harvest. The aim is to identify some reasons why fruiting differs between the trees and if possible suggest and/or enlighten the tree owners what can be done to improve fruiting. The study includes 25 trees, mostly located in Hälsingland, Sweden. The tree owners have answered two questionnaires, first in the spring with questions regarding flowering and the second in the autumn, regarding harvest.