ABSTRACT TITLE: Oil price shocks impact on the British and the Swedish stock markets SEMINAR DATE: 2007-06-07 COURSE: Bachelor thesis in Business Administration and Economics, 10 Swedish credits (15 ECTS) AUTHORS: Carl Hersaeus, Sven Piehl Trygg ADVISORS: Hossein Asgharian, Göran Andersson KEY WORDS: Dummy Variables, United Kingdom, Oil Price, OLS, Regressions, Stock Markets, and Sweden PURPOSE: The purpose of this paper is to study whether, and how, oil price shocks have an impact on British and Swedish stock markets. METHODOLOGY: Our paper is based on secondary data, focused on historical spot prices on Brent oil and stock indices from Sweden and UK. We construct dummy variables to register positive and negative disturbances in the oil price. Furthermore we try to find a relation between the price disturbances and the different stock indices. THEORY: We take off from earlier studies, which prove that there is a relation between oil prices and stock markets.

Evaluation of machinery costs is necessary for selecting appropriate farm machinery. Timeliness cost due to untimely operations is an important component of machinery costs. Timeliness costs can be high for crop sprayers, since pesticide application must be carried out within a short time interval. This Master thesis investigated the timeliness cost and the probability of a suitable workday for spraying. Timeliness factors were estimated for four different crops (oats, spring wheat, winter wheat and barley) using historical weed trial data.

This thesis examines political consumerism as a political tool for change. Consumers' attitudes and behaviour towards political consumerism is of special interest. The method used is a questionnaire with 59 participating students. Their answers are analysed both quantitatively and, to a lesser degree, qualitatively. The theoretical framework consists of Fishbein and Ajzen's theory of reasoned action and previously published research of essence.The consumers in this study generally rank corporate social responsibility (CSR) as important.

AbstractThe dependency of fossil fuels in the transport sector causes large emissions of carbondioxide. This problem can we reduce by using vehicle gas from digested solid manure and leftover of pasture. I have studied the potential for this in the county of Västernorrland. Thepurpose is to investigate how much vehicle gas that can be extracted.One central, large scale digestion and upgrade plant should be placed in Härnösand. Theamount of pasture and manure that is economical and practical available is enough to produce2,7-3,5 millions Nm3 vehicle gas.

A common assumption in marketing is the wider variety of product a corporation has, the better for the consumer: more product - more choices. Companies often develop a line extension to broaden consumer range through product attributes including quality, function and design. These developed attributes within the product are not always optimal for the consumer. As a result, companies often become entangled in having a price higher than the cost and benefit of the products. This essay aims to analyze the consumer value of line extension products and how these evaluations relate to extended line product pricing.

Green public procurement (GPP) can be used as an instrument to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, and consideration of environmental aspects within public procurement is becoming more common in Sweden and internationally. Two product groups that have been pointed out as especially important are transports and electricity, where the opportunities for public purchasers to reduce emissions are relatively large. This paper studies GPP which aims at reducing emissions, primarily of carbon dioxide, through environmental requirements within these two product groups. A theoretical analysis of cost-effectiveness, transaction costs and effects on technological development is performed, followed by a closer study of how these aspects appear in practice within GPP. The results indicate that a cost-effective allocation of reductions between the two product groups is most likely to be attained if the main part of emission reduction is achieved through environmental requirements on electricity. The cost for emission reduction within transports is relatively high, especially for heavy transports. For transportation services, more generally focused requirements on emission reductions could probably give greater environmental gains, but the existence of transaction costs steer the environmental requirements towards more technology specific types.

    The purpose of this essay is to examine trust, or lack of trust, in the social services. Previous research considering this topic is limited, which, in our point of view, implies the need of further studies. A quantative method was used, consisting of an online questionnaire containing statements about the social services. The statements were designed using a five level Likert-scale which required the respondent to rate their level of agreement. The questionnaire was published on five webcommunities directed to parents.

The global wood pellet market has seen a rapid growth after the adoption of the Kyoto protocol and the renewable energy incentives created within the European Union. The global consumption of wood pellets reached 13,5 million tonnes in 2010 and several experts estimate the consumption to be between 35-50 million tonnes by 2020. These forescasts raise the questions which regions that can supply this vast amount of wood pellets and what the conditions are for producing it. This study evaluates the conditions for wood pellet production and export from British Columbia, on Canada?s west coast, focusing on existing industry structure, raw material supply and the distribution chain.

The aim of this project is to examine the needs and problems that exists amongst homeless people and to develop a solution that will help them in their everyday life. Since the homeless are a relatively large vulnerable group i Sweden, their everyday lives could be made easier in many ways.A clear definition of the target group is put together to create a good starting point. What state and help orginazations do to help the homelss and the society?s view of the homeless is also relevant and has been documented. Four personal stories have been put together to desicribe cases of clear problems existing in everyday life.Several interesting problems has been defined from the research and acceptance in the communtiy, desire to be seen and heard and a lack of confidence were the main needs.

Purpose: To explore the purchasing function, mainly the supplier selection activities, in the fast fashion apparel industry. The purpose is 1) to explore the criteria associated with supplier selection for fashion products, and 2) to analyze the purchasing activities in order to find characteristics and trends which are considered to be strategic for the buying company. Method: The empirics consist of qualitative interviews with employees with responsibility for the companies' purchasing activities, as well as information gathered from articles, annual reports, and company websites. Result: The study indicates that qualitative criterias have increased in importance, and have become an important part of supplier selection for fashion goods. A number of characteristics where identified as important for purchasing fashion goods, which can affect choice of supplier; examples are increased collaboration, increased re-buys and increased use of logistics services.

Integration av system har varit ett aktuellt område under de senaste åren. Det har då främst handlat om integration av system internt på företag. En av anledningarna till det stora intresset av web services är möjligheterna att integrera olika system, exempelvis stordatorbaserade och Windowesbaserade system med varandra. Web services handlar om att kunna integrera system, både internt på ett företag och externa mellan olika företags olika typer av system. Allt detta görs via Internet och bygger på att man utgår i från standards när man bygger web services.

The aim of this report is to investigate how the work handling at the department for arriving goods at EFG in Tranås is working, as well as how it could be improved and made more effective. EFG is a corporation who process and sell office furniture. The company is working with a project concerning delivery precision, the subject is therefore particularly interesting from the perspective of delivery accuracy. The number of orders has increased notably during the fall of 2005 and the spring of 2006. This has led to new demands at the department for arriving goods and the topic is as a result of that important also from this point of view.Interviews and investigations have been conducted at location since no written material earlier has been made in the topic.

Detta examensarbete behandlar Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) och dess implementeringar Jini och Web services. SOA beskriver hur applikationsintegration mellan olika plattformar skall ske och innebär att applikationer designas som tjänster för att enkelt integreras med andra applikationer. Dynamisk lokalisering av tjänster via en registertjänst används för att applikationer skall finna andra applikationer. Vi designar och implementerar en mekanism i Web services som gör det möjligt att byta en tjänst under exekvering. Ett sådant byte kan vara intressant av två skäl, tjänster kan registreras utan att vara tillgängliga, eller att det uppstår ett fel under exekvering som gör att tjänsten blir otillgänglig..

In this study we examine trade patterns between Turkey and 13 member states of the European Union and how these have developed over the time period of 1983 ? 2006. To represent the industrial and agricultural goods included in the study we look at the United Nations Standard International Trade Classification (SITC). Following, we investigate internal differences in the EU by selecting four countries each to represent the Northern and Southern countries of the EU. Internal differences were studied in relation to the amount of trade occurring between Turkey and the Northern and Southern countries.

It has become fairly common for a company to outsource one or several of its logistic activities to a party separate from the business of the company itself. Since the original agreement usually involves two parties, the seller and the buyer, the logistics company is called the third party. The relationship between the outsourcing company and the third party varies in form and in depth but can sometimes be very close, almost to be considered a joint venture. When the co-operation between the two parties includes more than just one separate logistic service and the third party adapts its business to a certain extent to his principals needs, it constitutes third party logistics. If the logistics company, or a party employed by it, becomes insolvent when having the entrusted goods in his possession questions may arise concerning the right to the property.