Background: As a result of the financial markets ever ongoing product innovation a new derivative was introduced in the USA in 1997. A derivative that derived it's value, not from the price of an underlying asset, but instead from a climate factor. It's been known for a long time that revenue in certain industries are affected by weather conditions. The suppliers of weather derivatives claim that these weather sensitive businesses can user weather derivatives in order to lessen weather risk. Purpose: To do a critical evaluation of how weather derivatives can be used by companies as a risk management tool.

In the era of urbanization and globalization, many small, rural and post-industrialcities struggle for growth. The competition for citizens and visitors is intense, andone commonly used strategy is to promote the city to a target audience. Placemarketing, however, is homogenized to a great extent. Marketing thus seems likea useless approach, yet almost every city does it.By using discourse analysis and institutional theory, this essay aims to explainwhy the city of Kramfors markets itself. There are several problems arising due tothe marketing of places, especially concerning the discrepancy between the city?simage and identity.

Corporate Social Responsibility has been defined as the responsibility towards stakeholders and the society in whole and the expression was founded in the 1950´s. Reporting in corporate social responsibility has been termed corporate social disclosure and has been divided into three areas: environment, ethics and human resources. The aim of this study is to explain variations in corporate social disclosure and the different media used by corporations to communicate these disclosures. A survey was conducted, which included all Swedish corporations listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange, and all public-owned corporations. The results show that corporate characteristics such as size, industry and profitability can explain some of the variation in social disclosures and also have an effect on the extent and variation of the media used.

The aim of our master thesis is to study the way valuation of real estate is conducted by real estate companies. Furthermore we want to identify the factors that affect the relevance and reliability of the valuation. The reason for this is the introduction of IFRS, in 2005, and the application of the IAS 40 rules stating that real estate are to be recognized at fair value on the balance sheet. To do this we have performed a case study on 10 Swedish real estate compa-nies listed on the Stockholm stock exchange, OMX, Large Cap and Mid Cap list to see how the share value has performed in relation to the reported net asset value since 2005 and how they value their collection of properties. We also studied the assumptions made by real estate company analysts.

The purpose of this paper is to examine and analyze past development of mutual funds in large and small mutual fund companies and see if there are any differences between these two segments. Limitations on the number of funds have been made by choosing Nordic mutual fund companies that invest in emerging markets over an 11-year period. The study is made on 66 mutual funds managed by 13 mutual fund companies in which the segment of small fund companies includes seven fund companies with assets under management less than 100 billion SEK and the segment of large mutual fund companies includes six fund companies with assets under management more than 400 billion SEK. In the comparison of the segments the Sharpe ratio has been used to calculate the risk-adjusted return. The study shows small differences of the risk-adjusted return between the segments.

Purpose The purpose of our study was to investigate the changing nature of volatility during the last 80 years. Like in an American study, we tried to find some trends in the risk of stocks and bonds that would have an impact on the balance of a portfolio of stocks and bonds. At the same time we investigated the influence of inflation on the choice of portfolio. Methods We have used standard statistic tools and formulas to obtain our results. In most cases it was a matter of calculating average and standard deviation.

The first of January 2005 all companies listed on a stock exchange within the European Unionhad to implement International Financial Accounting Standards (IFRS) in their annual report.But is this regulation for the good or worse and does the benefits outweigh the cost? The goalwith the regulation is to make it easier for investors, shareholders and other stakeholders tomake financial decisions, compare domestic as well as international companies at the samecondition. One of the differences with the introduction of the new regulation is IFRS 3 thathandles business combination and how goodwill and intangible assets from the acquiredcompany should be accounted for. The objectives of our dissertation is to identify those listedcompanies that have made one or more acquisition between the years 2005 to 2006 andmeasure their level of disclosure concerning goodwill and intangible assets through theacquisition. We concluded trough the results that positive accounting theory and systemorientated theory didn?t explain all the verities in the companies? disclosures.

New laws and recommendations within corporate governance during the last years have affected the way board of directors work. The board is said to have and fulfill three roles: a control role, a service role and a strategy role. These roles could be understood by three theoretical theories: the agency theory, the resource dependence theory and the stewardship theory. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether, and if so how, the board work differs between two small firms based on these roles, given that one of the firms is a publicly listed firm and the other is a privately owned firm. Using a qualitative case study as research method we find that the board work differs between the two companies when it comes to these roles.

A co-operation is established when a group of people, sharing the same preferences and values, come together in order to satisfy a common need. The co-operative association should be democratic, governed and supervised by its members and open to everyone. The purpose of this article is to, from our ideal type, study similarities and differences regarding the corporate governance of the consumers? and the producers? co-operative movement. The motive behind our choice of alignment is that the mechanisms of corporate governance often are described from the perspective of the joint-stock company, making it valuable and interesting to study these mechanisms from the co-operative point of view.

Parallel import in the European Union is the perfectly legal activity under Art. 28-30 EC of buying goods in a low-price country in order to ship and sell them in a high-price country. The pharmaceutical market in Europe is subject to the subsidiartiy principle of Art. 5 EC and heavily characterised by national regulations that lead to significant price differentials between ? generally speaking ? Northern and Southern Europe.

In this thesis, the conditions of using the maintenance method live work at the Swedish TSO, Svenska Kraftnät has been analyzed. The study is limited to only include live work on 220 and 400 kV. The live work method is a type of maintenance that can be done, on lines or stations, even though they are still energized. The purpose of this thesis has been to map the present live work situation at these levels in Sweden. The study is based mostly on interviews with people who have specific field competence with in live work but also with personnel at Svenska Kraftnät.

Over the past 40 years 600 000 ha of lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta ssp. latifolia (Engelm.) Critchf.) has been planted in Sweden (280 000 ha on SCA's forest land alone which represents about 15% of the company's total forest land area). In the early 70's SCA situated a number of experimental stands in order to investigate different aspects of the exotic tree, primarily growth rate. To be able to compare the two species plots with scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.), this species was also planted at the same time and under the same conditions. A number of questions should always be raised when exotic species are introduced in an ecosystem. Invasiveness, the pathogen situation and purely ethical issues should be discussed.

The differences between the sexes when it comes to land and property ownership are enormous. This paper deals with issues concerning women's land and property rights. The aim of the study is to investigate what general factors are effecting women's access to and control of land. In addition, this paper aims to explore the effects of liberal formalism in relation to gender equality and the distribution of land. Formalism and formalization of women's land rights alone won't lead to equality in land distribution or women's emancipation.

Business development is to bring forth the entirecompany and through effective, market renewalprocesses to create sustainable profitability.1 This mightbe difficult, especially for smaller companies who lackthe experience and also tools to make correct forecast.2The purpose of my thesis is to investigate andexplain how a small business can remain flexible andcreate products in new markets by making the brandappealing and credible.In my thesis I have investigated how a company canextract benefit from its brand and identify the benefitswhich are the most unattended in a new market. Bydoing so, the company can systematically developconcepts for new business opportunities. I hopethat my thesis may provide tools and ease businessdevelopment process for smaller businesses.The purpous of my thesis I have studied theories ofbusiness development, brand and brand extension. Inthese theories I have used existing methods and I havecreated my own methods of business development.Through this thesis I have worked with AvelutionAB (a small that produce products for recoveryand comfort). I tested the theory and methods withAvelution which has resulted in a business developmentstrategy as well as two concepts that show howAvelution in the future might develop its business basedon the benefits Avelution and its products create..

A co-operation is established when a group of people, sharing the same preferences and values, come together in order to satisfy a common need. The co-operative association should be democratic, governed and supervised by its members and open to everyone. The purpose of this article is to, from our ideal type, study similarities and differences regarding the corporate governance of the consumers? and the producers? co-operative movement. The motive behind our choice of alignment is that the mechanisms of corporate governance often are described from the perspective of the joint-stock company, making it valuable and interesting to study these mechanisms from the co-operative point of view.