Shortly after the start of the transition from planned to market economy in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, an overall drastic fertility decrease began in all the countries of this region. This thesis focuses on the theoretical and empirical connection between transition and fertility. With the use of Gary Becker´s New Home Economics as a theoretical framework, fer­tility d

This paper examines the interactions among the three stock markets of the US, Germany and Turkey by applying Vector Autoregressive Model (VAR). Besides causality, impulse response and variance decomposition analyses are done. One of the main findings is that between the US and German stock markets information is transmitted fast and they are quite well integrated. Another result is that, as expect

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate if it is meaningful to use a portfolio strategy that minimizes the portfolio risk every day, when the investment horizon is 10 years. To minimize the portfolio risk a EWMA (Exponentially Weighted Moving Average) method is used to calculate the conditional variance-covariance matrix. This matrix is used to calculate the portfolio weight that minimizes th

This study analyzes the impact of socioeconomic and cultural variables on marital fertility for Switzerland in the period comprising 1870 – 1930. Using panel data techniques the analysis shows that variables measuring industrialization had an impact in declining fertility as well as cultural variables such as religion and language.

The purpose of this thesis is to criticize the Commission’s approach to the application of Article 82 to the exclusionary abuses of the dominant firms. It is a very interesting and hot topic as the attitude of the Commission and the European Courts have many implications on the consumer welfare and total efficiency in common market and innovation capacity and the economic development of the Europe

Energy is an important component in production. Today, energy comes from mainly non-renewable resources such as petrol and coal, which carry with them negative externalities on climate, which in turn affects human life and long term growth. To prevent this climate change the utilization of these resources needs to be reduced. This can be done by replacing non-renewable resources with renewable res

Gains from health improvements for the worst-off in society should be weighted according to their possibility to achieve a fair inning. This statement parts from the fair inning equity definition developed by Williams (1997). A fair inning is the level of full health all individuals should be entitle with. It is the aim of this paper to assess immigrants and natives health disparities under the li

This study aims to analyze the development in the rice market in the EU15 during the period 1990-2007. During this time the common agriculture policy (CAP) has been subject to some major reforms, leading to a significant decrease in the level of import tariffs and intervention prices and the introduction of the decoupled system of single farm payments. The effects of the reforms are discussed, but

EMU har idag pågått i tio år och många länder vill ta del av dess fördelar. I den stundande krisen anser många att Sverige bör ansöka om medlemskap medan andra menar att Sverige bör avstå. Genom Sveriges deprecierande valuta ökar exporten och därmed ökar Sveriges inkomst. Förlorar man denna inkomst vid ett medlemskap i EMU? Dagens diskussion får oss att fundera över hur ett EMU-medlemskap påverkar

In this thesis, the focus lies on the determinants of changes in credit ratings. Multiple regression is used to study the relation between credit ratings and a quantity of selected economic variables. The study is restricted to the US market and the ratings have been assigned by Moody’s during the period 1999-2008. In line with previous studies, the short-term interest rate and corporate profits a

This paper analyzes a way of allocating primarily three indivisible objects to the same number of individuals. We define an allocation rule that, given the preferences of the individuals, distributes an amount of money together with exactly one indivisible object to each of the individuals in a fair and optimal way. The monetary distributions are foremost interpreted as compensations and are regul

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a fairly new concept that acknowledges the social and environmental responsibility of Multinational Corporations (MNCs). This thesis sets out to investigate the incentives for Multinational Corporations to engage in CSR and, if they choose to do so, what effects such an engagement has on development in the host country of investments. The study focuses on d

Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka huruvida musiktjänsten Spotify kan minska den illegala fildelningen av musik. För att kunna undersöka detta har vi genomfört en enkätundersökning bland studenter vid Lunds Universitet vilket resulterat i data från 747 individer. Utifrån dessa data har vi sedan kunnat dra slutsatser för populationen studenter kring deras uppfattning om illegal fildelning och Sp

In this study, a macroeconomic credit risk model is applied to Sweden to judge the stability of the Swedish financial system to changes in the macroeconomic environment. Default rates for each industry are regressed against the macroeconomic variables to which Sweden has the greatest exposure and then stress tests are performed on the Swedish corporate loans portfolio to determine whether structur

With the development of international markets and the globalization of economic activities, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) as a strategy for both internal and external growth become more and more important. A representative case is the M&A transactions in North American and European airline industry. This paper investigates the impact of mergers and acquisitions on value creation for the b

Arbetsmarknadsutbudet för män och kvinnor har historiskt uttryckt sig olika. I Sverige har ett högt arbetskraftsdeltagande givit landet en framträdande position i internationella jämförelser om jämställdhet på arbetsmarknaden mellan könen. Syftet med denna uppsats är att i en egen undersökning beräkna arbetsmarknadsutbudet för män och kvinnor åren 1989-2008 som uppföljning av en tidigare studie på

The subject of institutions and their impact upon economic growth has been widely explored by a variety of literature. What has often been ignored, however, is the topic of how institutions arise in the first place. This paper thus takes the view that institutions are shaped by geography, and specifically, the agricultural sector. It is found that there exists some statistical and legal evidence t

This paper examines the parental background effect on male and female second generation immigrants’ annual earnings by comparing their annual income to that of workers with American descent on the US labor market. It uses data from the Current Population Surveys for the period 2000 - 2008 and utilizes the human capital earnings function into an OLS regression model to capture the income differenti

Denna uppsats syftar till att ekonometriskt undersöka möjligheten till ett asymmetriskt konsumtionsbeteende vid en ändring av räntan med utgångspunkt från livscykelteorin. Detta skulle kunna innebära att en sänkning av räntan leder till en högre konsumtion men en höjning av räntan leder till en mindre minskning av konsumtionen. Datat är mellan 1985-2007 för Sverige respektive USA. Den beroende var

The crude assumption on log normal stock returns and constant volatility in the Black-Scholes model is a big constraint which constructs smile and skew inconsistent prices. The Heston model and its suggested approximation built on stochastic volatility are introduced and faced against the Black-Scholes model in hope of producing option prices where the smile and skew are taken into account.. As on