The structure and performance of grocery distribution in Sweden has changed profoundly since the second world war. Increasing access and usage of the private car, in combination with an accommodating town planning has enhanced the exploitation of scale economies within distribution firms. There is, however, some ambiguity concerning the overall efficiency of the distribution system when the costs associated with travelling and purchasing performed by households are treated as an integrated part of the total distribution cost function. The purpose of this master thesis is to develop the foundation of a spatial optimisation model, which defines the most efficient distribution system. The underlying idea is that the optimal localisation and size of grocery stores is a function of economies of scale within the firms weighed against distributions costs within the households, such as transportation costs.

 This paper evaluates the effect of exchange rate risk on the sum of bilateral trade. To distinguish the effect between different types of countries, two groups are defined: advanced and developing economies. Economic theory on exchange rate risk and trade proposes ambiguous effects of increased volatility. However, the ex ante hypothesis is that developing economies are more sensitive to volatility. Contrarily to the hypothesis, the empirical results suggest that advanced economies would benefit up to twice as much from a removal of exchange rate risk.

This study aims to investigate how federations manage to balance the economies of scale through collaboration and autonomy. This is done through a case study on Länsförsäkringar. The lack of modern research on federations makes the federative structure an interesting field of study. Previous research has shown a general perception that an increased pressure on efficiency and economies of scale creates a stronger common unit that eventually creates an imbalance in the federation. It is therefore interesting to look at the balance, which exists between the member units and the common unit of a federation.

Mass distribution with techniques as multicast and peer-to-peer are becoming increasingly important in the Internet. Today the distribution of sound and video over Internet, so called streaming media, is static due to the unicast method. This results in a linear increase of distribution costs and therefore no conditions for commercial scalability. This thesis describes why multicast may be the only scalable alternative for commercial mass distribution of streaming media over Internet. Mass distribution through peer-to-peer technology promises a lot but is fronting a couple of great challenges, for example asymmetric bandwidth, locality and legalization.

Why is the e-revolution of the Swedish film distribution lingering? In attempting to answer that question, this qualitative study depicts the distribution market of Swedish film and its actors. Thirteen interviews with representatives of the industry have been conducted in search of an understanding of the current situation. Two important conclusions are made. One is that the strong interdependency between the actors of film distribution is inhibiting the acting space of those who seek change.

Abstrakt The yield curve as a forecasting tool for inflation has been thoroughly investigated. However, most of these studies considered only the major economies, such as the U.S. economy or the major European economies and not a small open economy such as the Swedish. The Swedish economy should be much more affected by the world economy then the bigger economies. The purpose with this study is then to investigate whether the Swedish yield curve, or the Swedish interest rate, can be used as forecasting tools for the Swedish inflation.

Sekretessbelagd.

The purpose of this paper is to describe how the workgroup and I developed and construc­ted an Intranet at Pharmacia & Upjohn, Helsingborg. The Intranet was constructed by the help of WWW-technique. The intention was to increase and improve the distribution of infor­mation in the large company. Some of the employees were interviewed and asked what they could gain by using the Intranet for information distribution instead of the usual papers. They also got a chance to tell us what they thought about the whole idea with the Intranet.

Songs from the Crypt: Mapping the Forces that Hinder the Digital Revolution of Music Distribution This paper seeks an explanation to the low market share growth of the commercial digital music distribution in Sweden. The analysis identifies a spectrum of obstacles that hinder the digital distribution technology from becoming the main form of music distribution in Sweden. These obstacles make the digital music distribution less favourable in comparison with physical distribution from the consumer?s point of view. The authors suggest that in order for the digital distribution of music to become competitive the digital product would either have to be developed further to offer more customer value or the so called a là carte retail model would have to be replaced by a subscription-based distribution model.

Abstract During the last 15 years, the former ?really existing socialist? economies have undertaken an extensive transition process. In this paper the development, measured as GDP growth, is analyzed using variables for economic policy. The analysis is both theoretical, taking as starting point current positions in academia, and econometrical with the linear regression model. We show that while economic policy variables of inflation, economic freedom and institutional quality affect economic growth, the results are not only the ones predicted by the theory.

The main purpose of this essay is to investigate if Latvia´s pattern of trade has become more similar to the mature market economies, after Latvia´s independence 1991.Today, the intra-industry trade (IIT) dominates the trade of mature market economies. One of the pioneers of intra-industrial trade is Paul Krugman, who was the first to emphasize the importance "of scale and consumers' desire for variety" in explaining the basis for modern commerce. Customers get more variety and usually cheaper goods when the market gets bigger. I mainly use the modern trade theories to explain the trade pattern in Latvia. To measure how Latvia has developed its intra-industry trade, and thereby is approaching the mature market economies´ trade pattern, I use the Grubel-Lloyd index (GL-index).

Background: A strong brand is becoming an increasingly important factor when surviving on a competitive market. A strong brand can therefore be considered a strategically important resource. The relationship between a brand's strength and its distribution can decide the future of a brand in the long run. Lifestyle branding is becoming a more popular way of differentiating ones brand from the competition. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to identify factors which according to the lifestyle brand owners are central when measuring the strength of a brand.

The purpose of this study is to investigate librarian?s opinions concerning literature with state supported distribution and how to mediate and market these in the library. The types of mediation and marketing that have been studied are positioning, labeling and oral mediation.The study is qualitative with interviews at seven main public libraries in central Sweden. The respondents of the study were responsible for the literature with state supported distribution within the library.The study is based on a theoretical frame of reference containing theories from Jofrid Karner Smidt, regarding librarian?s mediation in libraries, and François Colbert?s theory on marketing planning for arts and culture.The results of our study showed that librarians have both positive and negative opinions when it comes to the literature with state supported distribution.

Syftet med uppsatsen är att inventera uppfattningen om reklamationskostnader och deras vikt vid distribution, samt att utreda om det finns parametrar som möjliggör en inrangering av företag i olika grupper baserat på vilka rutiner de har vad gäller deras hantering av kostnadsdrivaren reklamationskostnader vid distribution. Studien är baserad på en förstudie samt en huvudstudie. Huvudstudien består av en empirisk undersökning innehållandes 27 företag. Studien har en deduktiv ansats. Studiens undersökning är av kvalitativ karaktär.

This report evaluates whether normal approximation or resampling is to prefer for estimating the distribution of the sample mean and functions of the sample mean. The evaluation relies on simulation studies. The observations of the sample are allowed to be differently distributed. In the case of sample means they are also allowed to be dependent.For sample means the two approximations behaves very similar. The most important component whether we have a good or a bad approximation is how good the approximations catch the variance of the true distribution.