Uppsatsens syfte är att jämföra risk och avkastning från en etisk fond med risk och avkastning från åtta slumpmässigt valda fonder och SIX RX-index för att utreda om etiska investeringar är jämförbara med andra investeringar. Skälet till att en egen etisk fond sätts samman är att vi ser problem med innehållet i etablerade etiska fonder.Genom att ställa upp finansiella och etiska kriterier har vi valt ut 34 bolag som ingår i vår egenkonstruerade etiska fond. För att uppfylla vårt syfte har vi valt att jämföra fondernas utveckling genom att studera fondernas avkastning, risk och sharpe-kvot under perioden 2002 - 2004.Inledningsvis placeras uppsatsen i ett teoriskt ramverk och den effektiva marknadens relevans för arbetet förklaras. Därefter följer en allmän diskussion om små placerares val och möjligheter i fråga om sparande. Utvärdering av fonder beskrivs därefter ingående och tre olika metoder att mäta en fonds prestation diskuteras.

Syfte: Denna studie ämnar undersöka hur sambandet ränteförändring och risk ser ut, utifrån bankernas perspektiv såsom bostadslångivare. Hur påverkas bostadspriser och hushållens boendekostnader av räntan? Innebär nuvarande situation på den svenska marknaden någon risk och är bankerna i så fall medvetna om denna? Finns det anledning att se över nuvarande strategi för bostadsutlåning för att bättre möta ett eventuellt högre ränteläge? Metod: Sambandet ränta ? risk utforskas genom antagandet att kreditrisk drivs av dels sjunkande bostadspriser och dels ökande boendekostnader. Alltså studeras hur dessa två faktorer påverkas av en ränteförändring. Denna del görs deduktivt genom tillämpning av kvantitativ data på diverse teori om bostadspriser.

In a business environment where the stakeholder perspective is evolving and sustainable development is receiving increased attention, it is of importance for companies to adjust. The demand and pressure is exerted from several stakeholders who force companies to take action and live up to the expectations because if failing to do so, negative consequences will most likely be the case. The attention of this study is on ABB Power Products (ABB PP) and their environment and working environment risk management. The aim of this thesis is to identify and describe how perceived environmental risks are managed and what the incentives are to work proactively to minimize the risks. The incentives for a proactive risk management strategy are researched through both a strategic and operational perspective.

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.

To effectively manage a forest resource for both economic and other values good planning is required. The problem is complex since you want to know which forest to cut and when. Often a hierarchical planning structure is applied, including strategic (long-term), tactical, (medium-term) and operational level. Today SCA Forest is one of few forestry companies in the northern Sweden with an integrated forest wood supply and industry. The goals of the company are to supply their own industries with wood and to manage the resources of the forest through a long-term perspective with satisfactory profitability.

Former studies have shown that a considerable part of industries? energy usage can stem from idle times in the production. This thesis, carried out at Siemens Industry sector, evaluates the potential for using the control system to automatically put machines into energy saving mode during idle times. The main part of the thesis consists of a case study performed on machine tools at a Scania production site in Södertälje. Through load measurements the potential for energy savings was determined.The results show that there is a great potential for energy savings during idle times at the site.

This project measures the upper bound of exposure time for laser reflection detection in the software DotDetector. Via measurement of the exposure time for which distortion happens in a room lit with everyday light we conclude that the upper bound for exposure times are 100 milliseconds. This value does not change as long as the lighting in the room is the same. As future work this project proposes variable upper bounds depending on secondary lighting in the room. Also we propose automating the colour masking of the detection algorithm..

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.

The EU Council adopted in 2007, environmental and energy goals with the aim of them must be met by 2050. This, in combination with those of the Swedish government 15 enacted environmental goals is supposed to lead the way for the Swedish environmental work.This report has examined measures in properties in the Swedish Cooperative Housing Society (SKB) stocks.The report discusses a range of measures that might be appropriate to apply on the properties to make them more energy efficient.One of the measures discussed, the vent whose primary purpose is to create a good indoor environment for the residents but is also where the most energy is lost.Another measure discussed is insulation of the building envelope on the estate to make it more energy efficient. To put extra insulation on the building envelope is important because of the large amount of energy that is lost through the walls, ceilings and floors.Future actions that may be implemented is individual billing of heating and hot water. This system has been used in European countries since the 70's and today the EU wants to increase the own individuals control over their electricity costs. This has led to a discussion whether to implement the system in Sweden or not.However, there are a number of equitable measures to be sorted out before the system can be used in any great scale.Finally, it is important to remember that environmental measures should be the primary and the pursuit of cost reductions the secondary otherwise you risk the environmental work to be counterproductive..

This thesis investigates how inventory management is practiced at a Swedish sawmill company, how practice differs from theory in this field and how the company could make more use of this theory. To do this we have performed a study on relevant literature and compared our findings with a field study on Moelven Valåsen AB. Our analysis shows that a large gap between theory and practice exists. We identify several reasons to this, including some sector specific problems when calculating cost rate for timber inventories. Suggestions on solutions to these problems and an example of how a cost rate can be estimated with relatively simple means are presented.

AbstractThe Energy Declaration is a law that will come into effect October 1: Th 2006. This report has Värnamo municipality as principal and shall clarify what the estate owner in general and Värnamo municipality in particular need to know about this law. Another part that is going to be dealt with is how large the future need for energy experts in this field will be, and which competence that will be demanded for them.The work will in general deal with simplified energy declarations for apartment houses and public buildings, since these buildings are the first to be involved with energy declarations.The energy declaration will consist of a number of important components.? Energy power i.e. how much energy the building consume? If the ventilation control is done? If the radon measurement is carried out? Recommendations of measures to improve the energy power? Reference value to compare the buildings energy power againstAccording to the law the declaration shall been made by an independent expert, which will need certain information for this.

Background: 2009 it has occurred a crisis in some of the member states of the European Union: Spain, Portugal, Italy, Ireland and Greece. Despite, some major banks in the world had begun to recover from the financial crisis that occurred from 2007 until 2009, there were still banks who found it difficult to survive. Greece is one of the countries that suffered from the financial crisis. The high budget deficit and the unsustainable debt are underlying the crisis.Banks as financial intermediaries have important function in a nation?s economy.

The purpose of this paper is to apply the Dual-Effect hypothesis in Pritmani, Shome and Singal paper (2003), in order to analyze the exchange rate exposure on firms listed on the U.K. market. The study will examine if the foreign involvement of the firm will affect the share price of the firm.In addition to evaluating the Dual-Effect hypothesis in Pritmani et. al. (2003), we will evaluate the effect of foreign interest rates impact on U.K.