This study investigates, with a critical approach, if portfolios consisting of high beta stocks yields more than portfolios consisting of low beta stocks in the Swedish stock exchange market. The chosen period is 1999-2016, covering both the DotCom Bubble and the financial crisis of 2008. We also investigate if the Capital Asset Pricing Model is valid by doing a test similar to Fama and Macbeth’s of 1973.

Based on earlier studies in the field and our own study we come to the conclusion that high beta stocks does not outperform low beta stocks in the Swedish stock market 1999-2016. We believe that this relationship arises from inefficiencies in the market and irrational investing. By doing this study we observe that, the use of beta as the only risk factor for explaining expected returns on stocks or portfolios is not correct.

This thesis examines whether active or passive fund management has performed better during the corona pandemic in the Swedish fund market. With the help of Refinitiv Eikon and Morningstar, we have collected relevant weekly data for 20 actively managed funds and 12 passively managed funds between 2020-03-06 and 2022-02-11. After careful calculation of the various performance measures in Microsoft Excel, we can state that the passive management has performed better during the corona pandemic, but this result is not a guarantee for future fund choices during future crises or economic shocks.

Nedskräpning av plast är ett globalt problem, inte minst i Sverige. Plastbärkassen är ett vanligt förekommande skräp vilket ledde till att regeringen 2020 införde en skatt på plastbärkassar. Syftet med skatten är att minska nedskräpningen men även att uppnå EU:s förbrukningsmål. Idag, två år senare, finns det inte mycket tidigare forskning kring konsekvenserna av skatten. Arbetet vill därför kunna förklara hur försäljningen ser ut efter införandet av skatten jämfört med innan, om skatten är rätt motiverad samt om regleringen har fått önskade och eventuellt oönskade effekter. Såväl en kvantitativ som en kvalitativ metod ligger till grund för arbetets utförande, där den kvantitativa datan utgör en bra bas för att kunna dra välgrundade slutsatser och kompletteras av den kvalitativa datan som ger siffrorna en förklaring.Syftet med uppsatsen var att analysera och undersöka effekterna av den införda punktskatten på plastbärkassar i Sverige. Resultatet visar att försäljningen av plastbärkassar har minskat. En positiv effekt är att skatten lett till ett ökat medvetande hos konsumenterna att i högre grad ta med en egen, återanvändningsbar, bärkasse. Trots att det inte var syftet med skatten är det faktum att det substituerats till andra typer av bärkassar troligen en önskad effekt av skattens införande. Frågan är om det ur miljösynpunkt kan rättfärdigas då försäljningen av avfallspåsar och papperspåsar ökat till följd av skatten. Kanske hade det behövts mer information kring bärkassarnas miljöpåverkan för att substitutionen skulle blivit optimal då substituten inte behöver vara bättre för miljön. För producenterna går det att se såväl negativa som positiva effekter, men för enskilda producenter kan konsekvenserna vara mer betydande.Naturligtvis är det faktum att skattens mål och syfte har uppfyllts en önskad effekt, och likväl att EU-målet har uppfyllts. Ser man till skattens syfte kan skatten ses som motiverad då förbrukningen minskat och antagligen även nedskräpningen, trots att nedskräpning svårt att mäta. Då det har förts en diskussion kring om nedskräpning är ett stort problem i Sverige gör detta att skatten kan ses som omotiverad om nedskräpning inte kan ses som ett stort problem. Till följd av dessa brister har skatten fått oönskade effekter i form av missnöjdhet, förvirring och eventuell dödviktsförlust. Skatten bör oavsett resultatet ha motiverats bättre.

The main aim of this paper is to investigate the volatility determinants of crude oil and foreign exchange markets and jump spillover between them. We consider currencies of two major oil-importing countries (India and China) over the sample period of January 1.2013 to October 31, 2019. We find evidence of positive return spillover from the oil to the foreign exchange market; however, there is a lack of return spillover in the other direction. Oil jumps appear to have a negative impact on exchange rate conditional volatility, and the latter responds asymmetrically to disentangled (positive and negative) oil price jumps. We also report disentangled exchange rate jumps significant impact on conditional oil price volatility. These results, however, are asymmetric based on the nature of jumps and alternative oil price series. Finally, we do not find evidence of co-jump between the oil and foreign exchange markets. These results have important implications for investors and policymakers. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

This study examines ethnic preferences using data from the television cooking show Come Dine With Me in Sweden. Amateur chefs compete by hosting dinner parties. Contestants rate each others performance and the host with the highest ratings wins a cash prize. The show gives an unorthodox opportunity to study ethnic preferences in a high-stakes game environment. The analysis of the collected data shows that native Swedish contestants rate co-ethnic hosts significantly more favourably than they rate other hosts, demonstrating the existence of co-ethnic preferences. This observation seems to be an outcome of own-group favouritism rather than dislike against other groups. Also, the observed co-ethnic preference is assumed to be subtle or non-conscious based on the nature of the analysed data.

Diskriminering är ett avsevärt hinder på arbetsmarknaden, bostadsmarknaden och andra marknader för personer med utländsk bakgrund. I Sverige finns lagstiftning som förbjuder diskriminering och en myndighet som har tillsyn över problematiken. Men vad säger forskningen om etnisk diskriminering i Sverige? Denna översikt redogör för nationalekonomiska undersökningar som entydigt har funnit belägg för etnisk diskriminering. I ljuset av denna översikt förs en diskussion kring det vi känner till och det vi behöver känna till. Slutligen framförs förslag om hur arbetet mot etnisk diskriminering kan förbättras.

An experimental study of perceptions about gay, lesbian, and heterosexual domestic violence in Sweden. Undergraduate students (N = 1009) read one of eight fictitious scenarios of domestic violence in married couple relationships, where sexual orientation, sex of victim and batterer, and severity of violence were varied. Perceptions of seriousness of the described incident and attitudes toward women, gays and lesbians were measured. Domestic violence was perceived as more serious in cases where: the respondent was a woman, the batterer was a man, the victim was a woman, or the battering was severe. Wife-battering in a heterosexual relationship was considered the most serious case in both the less and more severe battering scenario. Where battering was less severe, domestic violence in gay and lesbian relationships was perceived as more serious than heterosexual husband-battering; this difference disappeared in the severe battering scenario. Negative attitudes toward gays, lesbians, and women were associated with less concern about domestic violence in all types of relationships. The findings suggest that stereotypes about gays, lesbians, and women affect perceptions of domestic violence, but mainly when violence is less severe.

This article presents the first field experiment on sexual orientation discrimination in the hiring process in the Swedish labor market. Job applications were sent to about 4000 employers in 10 different occupations in Sweden. Gender and sexual orientation were randomly assigned to applications. The results show that sexual orientation discrimination exists in the Swedish labor market. The discrimination against the gay male applicant and the lesbian applicant varied across different occupations and appears to be concentrated in the private sector. The results also show that the gay male applicant was discriminated against in typical male-dominated occupations, whereas the lesbian applicant was discriminated against in typical female-dominated occupations. Theoretical implications are discussed.

In this paper we explore annual earnings as well as full-time monthly earnings differentials resulting from sexual orientation. We observe that gay males are at an earnings disadvantage compared to male heterosexuals regardless of which earnings measure we use. This earnings disadvantage is found to be larger when we compare gay and heterosexual males who are working full-time. In addition, the disadvantage is larger in the private than in the public sector. Lesbians, however, earn more than heterosexual females. This earnings advantage is considerably smaller when we study full-time monthly rather than annual earnings but an earnings advantage for lesbians at the top of the earnings distribution is documented regardless of which earnings measure we use. In addition, lesbians are doing better than female heterosexuals in the public sector. To sum up, the results indicate that gay males face obstacles on the labor market that hinder them from reaching top-level positions and high earnings. The earnings advantage observed for lesbians is likely to stem from the fact that lesbians devote more time to market work than heterosexual females do.

This paper presents the first study to investigate ethnic differential treatment in public housing through a correspondence test field experiment. The experiment involved sending inquiries from fictitious couples with Swedish or Arabic names to all public housing companies in Sweden. Four outcomes were examined: whether the public housing companies responded to the inquiries, whether they initiated their response with a greeting, whether they had a priority system in place, and whether they provided information about problematic neighborhoods. The findings revealed disparities in the treatment of the couples. The Swedish couple received greetings and information about problematic neighborhoods at a greater rate than the Arab couple. This study contributes to existing literature on ethnic differences in the housing market by providing evidence of differential treatment within the public housing sector. Additionally, it explores the content and quality of public housing companies' responses, offering valuable insights for policymakers and housing professionals in designing interventions to promote equality and counteract differential treatment.

This article encapsulates the findings of a randomized correspondence test field experiment investigating whether job candidates home status influences their employability. More than 2000 employers with vacancies in the Swedish labour market received a job application from a fictitious candidate. A job candidates home status (his or her own place to live or temporary housing with a friend) was randomized across employers. Results show that home status indeed affected the number of positive employer responses received by job candidates, mainly in low-skilled occupations. Not having a place to live at the time of the application proved a disadvantage when applying for positions within but an advantage when applying for positions outside the city of residence at the time of the application.

We examined customer and worker discrimination against gay and lesbian business owners using a web-based experiment conducted at a Swedish university campus. Participants (N = 1,406) were presented with a prospective restaurant establishment on the campus. They then stated whether they would be positive to such an establishment, whether they would be interested in working at the restaurant, and what their reservation wage would be if they were interested in the job. Owners sexual orientation was randomized across participants. Results showed that participants were less positive to a restaurant opening if the owners were lesbians, and they were less interested in an available job if the owners were gay. The participants had higher reservation wages if the owners were lesbians. In fact, the participants increased their wage demands when the number of women among the owners increased. Our study underlines that gay and lesbian people face various inequalities in society.

We present a field experiment conducted in order to explore the existence of ethnic discrimination in contact with public authorities. Two fictitious parents, one with a Swedish-sounding name and one with an Arabic-sounding name, sent email inquiries to all Swedish municipalities asking for information about preschool admission for their children. Results show that the parents were treated differently by the municipalities since the individual with the Swedish-sounding name received significantly more responses that answered the question in the inquiry than the individual with the Arabic-sounding name. Also, the individual with the Swedish-sounding name received more warm answers than the individual with the Arabic-sounding name in the sense that the answer from the municipality started with a personal salutation. We conclude that ethnic discrimination is prevalent in public sector contacts and that this discrimination has implications for the integration of immigrants and their children.

The development of methods for detecting labour market discrimination is characterized by a shift from observational data to different forms of experimental data. At the same time, there has been a shift from examining differences in treatment of groups of employees to differences in hiring.

Observational data are associated with omitted variable problems. Field experiments in the form of audit and correspondence studies give better control of what is observed by both employers and the researcher. A limitation is that they can typically be employed only for certain types of (low-skill, early career) jobs and the initial (call-back) stage of the hiring process. Another is that employers’ beliefs cannot be controlled for. Natural and lab experiments can address some of these concerns. Most studies are not able to distinguish theories of between taste-based and statistical discrimination.

This article presents the results of a field experiment in which fictitious parents of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) sent inquiries to schools in Sweden about admission of their children to the mandatory preschool class. Results show that inquiries concerning a child with no medical condition were more likely to receive an invitation for a visit and more likely to receive a promising placement response than inquiries concerning a child with ADHD and T1DM. Discrimination was more prominent in the private sector and when the child was a boy or had ADHD.

Ethnic discrimination is common in labor and housing markets. It leads to lower wages and higher unemployment for ethnic minorities, to segregation in the labor market, and to residential segregation. Several studies show that the Covid-19 pandemic increased the extent of ethnic discrimination. The prejudice against hiring migrants may have increased because people from countries where the epidemic started or from countries with a lower vaccination coverage were blamed for the spread. It may also have increased in the cases where the Covid-19 pandemic led to higher unemployment making it less costly for employers to discriminate.

Do employers discriminate against victims? We address this question and present the findings of a field experiment on hiring discrimination against victims. Matched pairs of written job applications for fictitious victims and nonvictims were sent to 1,117 employers in various labor market sectors. The probability of receiving a job interview invite or a job offer from employers was then estimated. Differences in this probability between the victim and nonvictim applicants were interpreted as discrimination. Results show that victims had a significantly lower probability of receiving a job interview invite or a job offer from employers than nonvictims. The extent of discrimination varied with applicants sex and occupational characteristics.

The purpose of the study presented in this paper was to evaluate the first-mover disadvantage hypothesis. Data from a Swedish television cooking game show was used to test the hypothesis. Each week four contestants on the game show take turns hosting each other at a dinner. Contestants rate each other’s performance and compete for a considerable cash prize. The contestant receiving the highest rating wins the cash prize at the end of the week. The results show that being the first contestant to host the dinner during a week remarkably reduced the chances of winning the cash prize in the end of that week. The results imply that being the first does not always pay off in some circumstances.

This paper reports the results of a study that investigates the causal interactions among the entities energy consumption, democracy, income, and CO₂ emissions in Bangladesh. Bootstrapping causality and time–frequency domain causality methods were adopted to examine the causal co-movements between the variables, using data series for a period of more than four decades. Results show that time-scale behavior plays an important role. Democracy is an important factor for emissions and national income. The nexus of democracy and CO₂ emission is bidirectional. The impact of democracy on CO₂ is stronger than vice versa. This study provides new insights for policymakers: democratic practices play an important role in implementing climate change policies, at least in the case of Bangladesh.

We estimated the degree of gender discrimination in Sweden across occupations using a correspondence study design. Our analysis of employer responses to more than 3,200 fictitious job applications across 15 occupations revealed that overall positive employer response rates were higher for women than men by almost 5 percentage points. We found that this gap was driven by employer responses in female-dominated occupations. Male applicants were about half as likely as female applicants to receive a positive employer response in female-dominated occupations. For male-dominated and mixed occupations we found no significant differences in positive employer responses between male and female applicants.

This paper examines how different uncertainty measures affect the unemployment level, inflow, and outflow in the U.S. across all states of the business cycle. We employ linear and nonlinear causality-in-quantile tests to capture a complete picture of the effect of uncertainty on U.S. unemployment. To verify whether there are any common effects across different uncertainty measures, we use monthly data on four uncertainty measures and on U.S. unemployment from January 1997 to August 2018. Our results corroborate the general predictions from a search and matching framework of how uncertainty affects unemployment and its flows. Fluctuations in uncertainty generate increases (upper-quantile changes) in the unemployment level and in the inflow. Conversely, shocks to uncertainty have a negative impact on U.S. unemployment outflow. Therefore, the effect of uncertainty is asymmetric depending on the states (quantiles) of U.S. unemployment and on the adopted unemployment measure. Our findings suggest statecontingent policies to stabilize the unemployment level when large uncertainty shocks occur.

This paper examines how different uncertainty measures affect the unemployment level, inflow, and outflow in the U.S. across all states of the business cycle. We employ linear and nonlinear causality-in-quantile tests to capture a complete picture of the effect of uncertainty on U.S. unemployment. To verify whether there are any common effects across different uncertainty measures, we use monthly data on four uncertainty measures and on U.S. unemployment from January 1997 to August 2018. Our results corroborate the general predictions from a search and matching framework of how uncertainty affects unemployment and its flows. Fluctuations in uncertainty generate increases (upper-quantile changes) in the unemployment level and in the inflow. Conversely, shocks to uncertainty have a negative impact on U.S. unemployment outflow. Therefore, the effect of uncertainty is asymmetric depending on the states (quantiles) of U.S. unemployment and on the adopted unemployment measure. Our findings suggest state-contingent policies to stabilize the unemployment level when large uncertainty shocks occur.

We used an experiment to investigate whether people’s decisions over employment opportunities are affected by the ethnicity and sex of their potential future coworkers. University students (N = 1,406) were asked to state the lowest hourly wage rate at which they would be willing to accept a job on a campus food truck, where they would work alongside the food truck owner. The ethnicity and sex of the food truck owners were randomized across participants. Results showed no signs of coworker prejudice in terms of the probability of being interested in the job and reservation wage.

This paper presents the results of a study that examined customer discrimination against fictitious male and female food truck owners with Arabic-sounding names on a Swedish university campus. In a web-based experiment, students (N = 1,406) were asked, in a market survey setting, whether they thought it was a good idea that a food truck was establishing on their campus and of their willingness to pay for a typical food truck meal. Four names—male and female Swedish-sounding names and male and female Arabic-sounding names—were randomly assigned to food trucks. We found no evidence of customer discrimination against food truck owners with Arabic-sounding names. Participants were slightly more positive to a food truck establishment run by a male with an Arabic-sounding name than a male with a Swedish-sounding name.

Vi presenterar resultat från ett experiment utfört på ett universitetscampus. Deltagarna fick se bilder av olika food-trucks och svara på om de tyckte det var en god idé att en food-truck etablerade sig på campusområdet samt ange sin betalningsvilja för olika varor. Deltagarna i experimentet var mer positiva till en etablering av en food-truck ägd av en man med arabiskt namn än till en etablering av en food-truck ägd av en man med svenskt namn. Resultaten är av intresse för integrationspolitiken, då de visar att egenföretagare med ursprung i Mellanöstern inte diskrimineras i en bransch där de ofta är verksamma.

Utrikes födda personer särbehandlas i den skriftliga kontakten med landets kommuner. Det visar vårt experiment, där en man med svenskklingande namn fick bättre bemötande och mer information än en man med arabiskt namn. Diskrimineringen kan ge konsekvenser i form av sämre möjligheter till förskoleplats, skriver nationalekonomerna Ali Ahmed och Mats Hammarstedt.

This paper presents the findings of a field experiment on hiring discrimination against ex-offenders in the Swedish labor market. Matched pairs of written job applications for fictitious male and female applicants with and without a past conviction of assault were sent to employers for nine different occupations. Results show that discrimination against ex-offenders exists, but the extent of it varies across occupations. The past conviction of assault was associated with 7–18 percentage point lower probability of receiving a positive employer response. Discrimination against ex-offenders was pronounced in female-dominated and high-skilled occupations. The magnitude of discrimination against ex-offenders did not vary by applicants’ sex.

Our "Restated diversification theorem" (Skogh and Wu, 2005) says that risk-averse agents may pool risks efficiently without assignment of subjective probabilities to outcomes, also at genuine uncertainty. It suffices that the agents presume that they face equal risks. Here, the theorem is tested in an experiment where the probability of loss, and the information about this probability, varies. The result supports our theorem. Moreover, it tentatively supports an evolutionary theory of the insurance industry-starting with mutual pooling at uncertainty, turning into insurance priced ex ante when actuarial information is available. © Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2006.

The study presented in this paper examined intersectional discrimination against individuals with multiple minority identities in the housing market, specifically those identifying as Arab Muslims. By sending inquiries from three fictitious applicants - a Swedish Christian, an Arab Christian, and an Arab Muslim - to 1,200 landlords in Sweden, we analyzed differences in landlord responses. Results showed the Swedish Christian received the most positive replies, followed by the Arab Christian, with the Arab Muslim receiving the fewest. The study underscores the compounded discrimination faced by those with multiple minority identities and challenges the conflation of ethnic and religious identities in prior research.

Are people more prosocial in a religious context? We addressed this question through an experiment. We randomly placed participants in the control group in a neutral location (a lecture hall), and we placed participants in the experimental group in a religious location (a chapel). The participants then took part in a one-shot three-person public goods game, which measured participants' degree of cooperativeness. The results showed that participants in the experimental group cooperated significantly more than did participants in the control group. Furthermore, participants' beliefs about other participants' cooperativeness were more positive in the experimental group than they were in the control group. Improved expectations of others partially explained the enhanced cooperation in the religious context. We found no main or interaction effect of self-reported religiosity in the experiment.

We examine the causal relationship between economic growth and CO₂ emissions in a panel of 24 European countries from 1980 to 2010. Using an analytical framework that considers pooled mean group estimations in a dynamic heterogeneous panel setting, we show that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between CO₂ emissions and economic growth in the long run and that there is no such relationship in the short run. In particular, we find that biomass energy is insignificantly linked to CO₂ emission. However, technological innovation significantly facilitates reduction of CO₂ emissions in the investigated countries. Altogether, our study implies that economic growth and environmental quality can be achieved simultaneously, which opens up new insights for policy-makers for sustainable economic development via implementation of renewable energy consumption through technological innovation.

This paper examines whether the size of foreign exchange (FX) reserves explains cross-country differences in foreign currency depreciation realized over the 2021-22 Federal Reserve monetary policy tightening that led to a sharp appreciation of the US dollar. Across a broad sample of countries, we document that an additional 10 percentage points of FX reserves/GDP held ex-ante were associated with 1.5 to 2 percent less exchange rate depreciation against the US dollar and this buffer effect was larger among less financially developed economies. Effects were more pronounced for large-reserve countries that sold reserves to intervene than for large-reserve countries that did not intervene, supporting the presence of both balance sheet and intervention channels. Higher ex-ante policy rates were also associated with less depreciation especially among financially open economies. An analysis of daily currency movements following the June 2021 FOMC meeting corroborates the main results. These findings suggest that FX reserves may promote monetary policy independence in the presence of global spillovers.

Denna studie har till syfte att med hjälp av spelteorier analyser vilka incitament som låg bakom oljeprisfallet 2014 till 2016. Studien baseras på att pröva två spelteorier och analyserar vilken teori som har störst förklaringskraft på händelseförloppet. Händelseförloppet och oljemarknadens utveckling kommer att sammanställas utifrån aktuell data från myndigheter och nyhetssidor. Därefter kommer materialet att kategoriseras i olika huvudteman för att enklare kunna illustrera händelseförloppet och få en djupare förståelse. De två spelteorierna som studien baseras på är fångarnas dilemma och Stag Hunt samt försäkringsspelet som är en utvecklad version av Stag Hunt.Oljepriset under 2014 sjönk med 48,2 % på grund av massproduktionen av samtliga oljeproducenter. Detta påbörjades med hjälp av den nya kostsamma utvinningstekniken, fracking. Oljeproducenter som OPEC ökade sin produktion bland annat för att inte förlora sina marknadsandelar. Innan 2014 bestraffades oljeproducenter om produktionsnivån förändrades då det var en faktor som förhindrade upprätthållandet av ett högt oljepris. På oljemarknaden förekom svek, hot samt bestraffningar vilket indikerar på att fångarnas dilemma överensstämde med oljemarknaden.Oljeprisfallet 2014 orsakades av massproduktionen av främst USA. Oljeproducenterna hade då vetskap om USA:s mål vilket gjorde att en av förutsättningarna för fångarnas dilemma brast. Ur ett Stag Hunt perspektiv är oljeproducenternas pareotooptimala val att samarbeta. Däremot fick USA möjligheten att bli oberoende av importerad olja och valde därför att inte samarbeta med de resterande oljeproducenterna. För att inte riskera att förlora sina marknadsandelar var OPEC tvungna att försäkra sig genom att också avvika från samarbetet.

The global financial crisis has brought increased attention to the consequences of international reserves holdings. In an era of high financial integration, we investigate the relationship between the real exchange rate and international reserves using nonlinear regressions and panel threshold regressions over 110 countries from 2001 to 2020. Our study shows the level of financialinstitution development plays an essential role in explaining the buffer effect of international reserves. Countries with a low development of their financial institutions may manage the international reserves as a shield to deal with the negative consequences of terms-of-trade shocks on the real exchange rate. We also find the buffer effect is stronger in countries with intermediate levels of financial openness.

We investigate the event-based geopolitical shocks from the Russian invasion of Ukraine on agricultural and energy commodities using daily event-based structural vector autoregression (SVAR). We find that the geopolitical shock affects the markets of wheat (2%), corn (1%), and European natural gas (7.5%). However, substantial heterogeneity is observed among the agricultural and energy markets. Geopolitical risk stemming from the Russia-Ukraine conflict affects the European natural gas market more strongly than the US and Asian markets. The regional segment of natural gas markets could explain this. Finally, our analysis explores how geopolitical news affects the dynamics of stock, currency, and bond markets.

We investigate the determinants of emerging markets performance during five U.S. Federal Reserve monetary tightening and easing cycles during 2004-2023. We study how macroeconomic and institutional conditions of an Emerging Market (EM) at the beginning of a cycle explain EM resilience during each cycle. More specifically, our baseline cross-sectional regressions examine how those conditions affect three measures of resilience, namely bilateral exchange rate against the USD, exchange rate market pressure, and country-specific Morgan Stanley Capital International index (MSCI). We then stack the five cross-sections to build a panel database to investigate potential asymmetry between tightening versus easing cycles. Our evidence indicates that macroeconomic and institutional variables are associated with EM performance, determinants of resilience differ during tightening versus easing cycles, and institutions matter more during difficult times. Our specific findings are largely consistent with economic intuition. For instance, we find that current account balance, international reserves, and inflation are all important determinants of EM resilience.

We investigate the relationship between relative concerns with respect to income and the quantity and quality of sleep using a 6-year panel dataset on the sleep behavior of people in Germany. We find a substantial negative association between relative income and number of hours of sleep and satisfaction with sleep, i.e., sleep quality, whereas there is no particular association between absolute level of income and sleep quantity and quality. A 10-percent increase in the income of relevant others is associated with 6-8 min decrease in a persons weekly amount of sleep on average, yet this effect is particularly strong among the relatively deprived, i.e., upward comparers, as this group shows a corresponding decrease in sleeping time of 10-12 min/week. These findings are highly robust to several specification checks, including measures of relative concerns, reference group, income inequality, and local price differences. The heterogeneity analysis reveals that the relationship is mainly driven by people with relatively fewer working hours, a higher demand for household production and leisure activities, and lower physical health and well-being. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis and ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, investors face challenges in understanding price dynamics across assets. This paper explores the performance of the various type of machine learning algorithms (MLAs) to predict mid-price movement for Bitcoin futures prices. We use high-frequency intraday data to evaluate the relative forecasting performances across various time frequencies, ranging between 5 and 60-min. Our findings show that the average classification accuracy for five out of the six MLAs is consistently above the 50% threshold, indicating that MLAs outperform benchmark models such as ARIMA and random walk in forecasting Bitcoin futures prices. This highlights the importance and relevance of MLAs to produce accurate forecasts for bitcoin futures prices during the COVID-19 turmoil.

This paper studies the connectedness among energy equity indices of oil-exporting and oil-importing countries around the world. For each country, we construct time-varying measures of how much shocks this country transmits to other countries and how much shocks this country receives from other countries. We analyze the network of countries and find that, on average, oil-exporting countries are mainly transmitting shocks, and oil-importing countries are mainly receiving shocks. Furthermore, we use panel data regressions to evaluate whether the connectedness among countries is influenced by economic sentiment, uncertainty, and the global COVID-19 pandemic. We find that the connectedness among countries increases significantly in periods of uncertainty, low economic sentiment, and COVID-19 problems. This implies that diversification benefits across countries are severely reduced exactly during crises, that is, during the times when diversification benefits are most important.

Previous studies indicate a substantial time-variation in the co-movement of commodity futures markets and economic fundamentals. This paper examines the connectedness and directional spillovers for both the agricultural commodity futures markets and the corresponding sentiment indices. We first construct dynamic time-varying connectedness measures both for the agricultural commodity returns and sentiments. Then, we use panel data regressions and time-varying Granger causality tests to evaluate whether the spillovers between these returns and sentiments are influenced by the economic and financial uncertainties, including the global COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, we document that the COVID-19 induced uncertainty influences agricultural commodity returns and sentiments significantly around the first cycle of the pandemic in 2020. Last but not least, economic policy and financial market uncertainty are also found to be significant determinants of the connectedness between agricultural commodity returns and sentiment spillovers.

We investigate the impact of geopolitical risk, global and US economic policy uncertainty on the structure of Bitcoin correlation with various financial and commodities asset classes. We further investigate the impact of the aforementioned factors on the volatility and risk premium of Bitcoin investment. We find that both geopolitical risk and global economic policy uncertainty command a risk premium, particularly in distress market conditions. Moreover, during the period of high policy uncertainty and worsening economic conditions, Bitcoin investors can only hedge their portfolio with gold, not with other financial assets. Our results highlight that the effect of geopolitical risk, global and US economic policy uncertainty is far more significant during unfavorable economic conditions. (C) 2019 Published by Elsevier B.V.

This study investigates if attitudes towards the pandemic recommendations made by the Public Health Agency of Sweden and if the estimation of their duration differ before and after a Covid-19 vaccination. The participants contributed to the study by filling out a questionnaire. A mass vaccination is a rare occurrence and few empirical studies have been conducted. A risk regarding a mass vaccination is that it can result in a premature relaxed mindset towards the recommendations, which can lead to an increased spread of the virus. To investigate this, we compared the responses from the participants who filled out the questionnaire before and after the Covid-19 vaccination. The results showed no differences in the attitudes towards the recommendations in the two groups, however tendencies of differences regarding the estimation of duration of the pandemic recommendations was discovered. Thus, we could not detect any large effects of a more relaxed mindset towards the recommendations, however we cannot exclude smaller effects. The results do not support that stricter recommendations should be introduced in order to counteract a more relaxed attitude. 

The ecolabel Krav exists to promote organic food production. The label has existed for a long time and has grown to be a well-recognized brand. How well the label works to influence consumption is something worth investigate more closely. Since the ecolabeled food are generally more expensive to produce, and thus get a higher market price, consumers must have a desire to pay the higher price. The purpose of this thesis is to examine whether the willingness to pay actually exists among students. The included theories are income elasticity, price elasticity, external effects and nudging. These together with previous research have discussed the factors concerning consumers behavior. A survey has also been conducted to examine students knowledge concerning the ecolabel Krav, and to test their willingness to pay for selected conventional and Krav labelled groceries. In addition to the survey, information has been collected through an email correspondence with the store manager at Maxi ICA Stormarknad Linköping to get information about possible strategies the grocery store use.

The study shows that consumers are well informed about the existence of Krav as an ecolabel, but the knowledge is poor regarding the work Krav is performing and the purpose of it. We have generally observed that there are fewer individuals choosing the ecolabel Krav over conventional, the result differs between groceries. We have observed several connections regarding the factor income, the higher income ranges seem to be a synonym with the highest willingness to pay for Bregott. For the eggs, we cannot see any clear connection between the higher income ranges and the higher willingness to pay. Another factor that has high impact on the willingness to pay is the price, when a bigger price difference between conventional and Krav groceries exist, this results in a connection that more individuals chose the conventional option. Individual preferences of ecolabels show that a certain awareness exist, but that there is a difference in awareness and action. Which previous research strengthens. Preferences does not determine consumption in all cases, instead price seems to be the deciding factor. This can be based on the selected population which are students.

In order to ensure the Earth’s future prosperity and welfare gender inequalities need to be tackled and our marine environment needs to be safeguarded. In this thesis we therefore evaluate the possible effects of a blue economy on gender equality in the Republic of Seychelles. Using a qualitative methodology, we have conducted 21 semi-structured interviews with a total of 35 respondents. These including people working at grassroots level, in non-governmental organisations and within the governmental bodies in Seychelles. In order to assist the collection and analysis of the data, we developed a theoretical model portraying in what ways the blue economy can affect gender equality in the country via three main components; maritime sustainability, technological innovation and new market and job opportunities. The empirical results demonstrate that the blue economy framework through these three components can affect gender equality, both in the short and long-term. If proven to be inclusive and implemented in the correct way, our findings portray that the blue economy will offer many opportunities. This affecting gender equality in diverse ways, with our main results showing that the concept will (i) help single mothers through factors such as increasing food security, water quality and new job opportunities; (ii) encouraging women to enter into more technological and/or male dominated fields; (iii) motivating boys to remain in school or help dropouts to venture into more practical fields.