The overall purpose of this essay was to provide a better understanding of the importance of discretion for social workers in direct social services. To answer the purpose three questions were formulated: (1) How do social workers define and describe their discretion and their ability to independently accomplish their work? (2) How do social workers experience that workplace organization, policies and economic conditions interact with their discretion and (3) How do social workers experience that the interaction with the client can affect how they use their discretion in the individual case? The method used was qualitative interviews. The theoretical framework was Michael Lipskys (1980) Street-level bureaucracy and the four themes organization, professional role, skills and interaction.The results showed that the respondents, although they did not consider themselves to be affected by the economy still adapted to budget restrictions when they said that they were cost conscious in their work. This adjustment to budget framework could possibly be what made them not feel limited in their work.

During the last decades, brand equity has been a priority topic for both practitioners and academics. In accordance with the structural changes in the economic settings caused by the so-called "new economy", corporations being confronted with a shift on perceived business value structure from tangible assets to intangibles. On the other hand firms increasingly are adopting more responsible behaviour towards their societies. In this context, one critical question is to understand how corporate conduct may affect brand equity. The purpose of this study was to find how brand equity (BE) measurement methods embrace corporate responsibility (CR), based on a literature review.

ABSTRACT Poverty, and in particular child poverty, is a serious social problem. Statistics show that the number of children living in poverty has increased over the last ten years. Earlier research shows that there are huge gaps in our knowledge of how the actors in civil society handle child poverty. With this study we hope to help fill this gap. The aim of our study is to look at how four different organisations working in the civil society in Uppsala perceive and handle child poverty.

This paper concerns itself with the controversy between marginal theory and empiricism during 1946-63, its main focus is the debate that followed R.A. Lesters empirical research 1946 who wrote a critical paper concerning the maximization-principle. It also concerns itself with the debate that followed on Milton Friedman´s essay on positive economics..

Since the 1980's economic policies has become an important issue in municipalities and more resources are put into projects that are intended to have a positive influence on the local economic growth. From a theoretical perspective of regime theory and a model of local political economy, concerning the strategies chosen by the actors involved designed by Jon Pierre, the discussion points to the fact that it is possible to affect the local development. The municipalities discussed and compared in this thesis, Bromölla and Östra Göinge, have similar prerequisite for growth mainly due to their dependence to large industrial companies.In order to fulfill the aim of the thesis and examine the change in economic policies over time and between the two municipalities a comparative method is used. The creation of local governing coalitions is emphasized which makes efforts and intentions of individual actors crucial for the success of the local economic policies. Bromölla started their more active efforts in the area of economic policies earlier than Östra Göinge and has also come a bit further in the process.

The purpose with this paper is to examine if tertiary education and democracy have an impact on economic growth. In order to decide how democratic the examined countries are the democracy index constructed by The Economist is used. Besides the two central theories the purpose is also to explain why these variables could affect growth and to examine direct and indirect effects. Indirect effects mean that one variable affects another variable which thereafter has an impact on economic growth.34 OECD countries are compared in order to investigate whether education and democracy are strongly correlated with BNP per capita. Therefore a statistical design is used as method.The empirical results suggest that there is significant correlation between democracy and economic growth.

There is a known link between relative deprivation and street crime among market liberal countries. Although some research has been done with cross-national data, there is none to suggest that the observed link is as valid in a country well known for its extended welfare and generous social expenditure like Sweden. The following study uses longitudinal data to see if this recognized link between relative deprivation and street crime also stands in a country with almost a century long tradition of striving for social-, economic- and cultural equality. Even though Sweden, over the last decade, has been subjected to a series of deregulations due to policy changes at national level, and with a following rise in inequality, it is still considered to be one of the most equal countries in the west. It is therefore not unlikely that the high degree of social security will reduce the negative impact of relative deprivation on social relations among its citizens, perhaps enough so that the correlation will be significantly weakened.

I ett bredare perspektiv är uppsatsen ett försök att uppmärksamma den i nationalekonomiska sammanhang negligerade entreprenören. Uppsatsen vidareutvecklar Claudio Michelaccis matchningsfunktion där teknologisk tillväxt får konstant avkastning om allokeringen till forskning och entreprenörskap är genomtänkt, något han finner stöd för i USA. Uppsatsen testar samma funktion på 23 industriländer och finner ett tämligen gott stöd för hans antagande..

Although being recognized as holding great cultural-historical significance by local officials, numerous parts of the functionalistic development along Friggagatan became demolished in 2008.This bachelor thesis have surveyed how the planning process proceeded through various municipal committees, and moreover, how different interest groups gathered around certain discursive attitudes. As a consequence of various paradigm shifts in society, e.g. that local government gradually are depending on private economic initiatives, there are to some extent a fear among politicians that cultural-historical demands can risk economic growth.Nevertheless, a building or a development are in fact bearing different value-perspectives, such as economic, functional and cultural-historical. Due to the fact that the heritage-sector has limited resources, in combination with sometimes vaguely and obsolete conservation documents, the sector have difficulties of responding common economic arguments, which leads that the real estate-owner gets total interpretative prerogative.However, despite a sometimes suspicious political attitude towards an improved conservation document, e.g. with continuously updates concerning a building?s technical and economic status, there are some political initiatives working towards it..

Landreformen i Västbengalen, Indien, påverkade inte bara produktiviteten utan även de sociala relationerna inom staten. Decentraliseringen av den politiska makten är även den starkt kopplat till denna diskussion. Denna uppsats diskuterar detta och försöker analysera vad som var så unikt med just Västbengalens reformförsök. Blev resultatet det väntade och i så fall varför?.

Abstract This essay discusses whether or not the technical assistance given by The WTO will effect the reduction of poverty in LDCs. The liberalization of trade is considered to be one of the main forces behind economic growth and the reduction of poverty. Can trade reduce poverty?The WTO formed The Integrated Framework pro to the Doha Round in 2001 to assist the LDCs in aiding them implement the WTO's framework. Has this implementation been effective?The WTO also created The EPRP program to the Doha Round in order to create poverty reducing projects amongst developing countries.

The purpose of this research is to examine some historical aspects of Robert Putnam?s thesisabout voluntary associations and social capital. According to a micro perspective theory ofsocial capital the trust and reciprocity required and created by associations is important toexplain the disparity between institutional performance and socioeconomic development ofsocieties. The social patterns governing this therefore set a precedent for the future. Using themutual sickness benefit societies in Sweden as variable for voluntary associations around1884, the essay discusses the possible links between social capital, associations and long termeconomic development.

The purpose of this essay is to test for significance between TED- spread and four different macrovariables, housing prices, Federal funds rate, Asset Backes Securities and mortgage volume. Multiple regression has been used to search for significance between the dependent and the four independent variables. Our data consist of quarterly reports from January 1998 to June 2008. Our conclusion is that all of the four variables show a significant relation with TED- spread. The model explains 76 percent of the variation in TED- spread..

The aim of this thesis is to analyse the most common economic effects of countries pursuing trade facilitation. Trade flows are constrained by non-tariff barriers and through trade facilitation these barriers can be decreased. We will study the effects of trade facilitation from a theoretical perspective and evaluate a number of empirical studies. Several different trade barriers will be identified as well as those regions and countries that will gain the most from trade facilitation. We draw the conclusion thatlarge gains would prevail for all countries and that the consumers, businesses and the state all benefit from trade facilitation.

The social dimension in the EU, explored through the document texts of the Treaty of Rome, the Lisbon Strategy, the Social Policy Agenda and the Swedish Strategy ReportThis paper explores the social dimension of EU social policy, except the aspects of the economic and labour market. The EU documents reveal an underlying line of thought stemming from the alignment of the six founding countries, spearheaded by France, with the conservative corporatist welfare model. As one of four European welfare models, the conservative corporatist model emphasises labour market issues, corporate social responsibility and the subsidiarity principle in EU social policy. It also influences how the texts define the terms social, social policy and social exclusion. The definitions determine how policymakers combat problems such as social exclusion and identify the policy issues to be included in EU social policy.The Swedish Strategy shows how the country is responding to the objectives that it has been assigned by the EU and how it plans to attain them.