Market In Sweden Research Articles

The SEN industry and teachers’ CPD: ideal elements of teaching and enabling arrangements

ABSTRACT In this study, we explored the special educational needs (SEN) industry in relation to teachers’ continuing professional development (CPD) by analysing invoices generated by CPD providers in Sweden. Guided by the theory of practice architectures (TPA), we examined the characteristics of the offered SEN content, focusing on the implied elements of ideal teaching practices and the arrangements that have led to SEN becoming a key component of the teacher CPD market in Sweden. The results provided evidence of a SEN industry operating in the interests of private economic growth rather than the needs of teachers or the teaching profession.

Pre-welfare state provision and adverse selection: enrolment in a Swedish nationwide health insurance society

Mutual benefit societies evolved as the major provider for sickness, accident and life insurance in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries on both sides of the Atlantic. One of the major problems facing insurers was the risk of adverse selection, i.e. that unhealthy individuals had more incentives than healthy individuals to insure when priced for the average risk. By empirically examining whether longevity among insured individuals in a nationwide mutual health society was different from a matched sample of uninsured individuals, we seek to identify the presence of adverse selection. We find no compelling evidence showing that unhealthy individuals were more likely to insure, or reasons to believe that problems related to adverse selection would have been a major reason for government intervention in the health insurance market in Sweden.

The immobility of the mobile teacher: how teachers change jobs in a segregated local school-market

ABSTRACT This study examines job-changing patterns of secondary school teachers in a segregated local school market in Sweden. In an initial step, we use information on pupils’ resources to hierarchically group schools in four groups, where schools with similar pupil bases are sorted together. By interviewing 29 teachers, the conclusion is that when teachers change employer, they navigate or are recruited to schools that are similar to schools where their professional approach was formed (formative school). The significance of the formative school is important since the teacher synchronises subjective professional beliefs with the institutional conditions and logics that produce the local working conditions. This process means that the mobility of teachers is limited to schools within the same or adjacent school groups. This indicates that teachers might be locked in to limited sectors of the labour market by the same market forces that segregate pupils on the school market.

The invisible hand of an invisible population: Dynamics and heterogeneity of second‐home housing markets

AbstractThe effects of second‐home tourism on property markets has been one of the key debates in second‐home research. This has been discussed in association with property speculation, financial vulnerability, gentrification, displacement, and rural development. This paper studies the market prices for all detached homes traded on the open market in Sweden during 1999–2017. It investigates how the market values of second homes have developed over time and how they vary spatially. Results show clear and growing spatial inequalities over the period. It emphasises the dynamic interplay between different forms of dwelling use and the close relationship to spatial context.

The Making of Everyman’s Capitalism in Sweden: Micro-Infrastructures, Unlearning, and Moral Boundary Work

This article analyzes the so-called turn to the market in Sweden, with an emphasis on aspects that are typically absent from large-scale narratives. How did the changes known as neoliberalization and financialization enter everyday life and mundane financial practices? And which analytical tools can historians use to meaningfully connect the experience of changes on the micro level to those on the macro level? Zooming in on the the year 1979 and focusing on two empirical cases—the popularization of stock saving and the domestication of consumer credit—allows us to elaborate and apply a set of analytical entry points about (1) mundane micro-infrastructures, (2) financial knowledge as learning and unlearning, and (3) moral boundary work. This framework offers a way of exploring when and in what ways new financial practices were experienced and eventually embraced by those who had previously been skeptical or even hostile. It also reveals the role played by actors and institutions not typically seen as agents of marketization.

The impact of refinery and oil demand shocks on the motor fuel market in Sweden

AbstractThis paper examines the link between the oil market and the motor fuel market in Sweden by developing a joint oil and motor fuel market in a structural VAR model. We explore the dynamic relationship between the oil market and motor fuel market (both gasoline and diesel) by focusing on the effects of oil demand and refinery shocks on motor fuel price and consumption. The results reveal opposite responses of gasoline and diesel consumption to positive oil demand shocks. Moreover, motor fuel price response to both oil demand and refinery shocks is greater than that of motor fuel consumption. We also assess the immediate and long‐run contributions of each of the shocks to the total variation of motor fuel price and consumption in the Swedish motor fuel market.

Housing Markets and Resource Sector Fluctuations: A Cross-Border Comparative Analysis

Recent research has sought to better understand resource and housing market cycles longitudinally and define clear phases in order to understand interactions between the two over time. This is a necessary step forward in housing market knowledge for this under researched area, particularly in an economically unique context. This paper expands knowledge by undertaking a comparative study of town housing markets in Queensland’s coal mining Bowen Basin and Sweden’s northern municipalities—specifically Gallivare and Kiruna—where a long history of iron ore mining exists. This paper analyses these housing markets using longitudinal data spanning two decades, which includes two resources cycles in two geographically disparate locations. The results indicate that the housing market in Queensland, Australia, is far more volatile than the housing market in the Swedish municipalities. The regional housing market in Sweden’s municipalities tend to be less dependent on resource price and output from mines than their Australian counterparts. Part of the explanation for this is that the Swedish towns examined are less of the traditional mining town known from previous studies, and more a town with mining. Developing and improving understanding of markets over the duration of a cycle is important. Particular value is apparent in the comparison and contrasting of two separate resource regions encompassing resource reliant communities in two different countries. Importantly, the linkage of research regions through resource relationships leads to groundbreaking research which will have practical benefit to multiple economies, housing markets and for policy-makers alike.

Effects of strong and weak non-pharmaceutical interventions on stock market returns: A comparative analysis of Norway and Sweden during the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic

In this paper, we examine the behaviour of stock market returns in Norway and Sweden during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. We test how the different government interventions chosen in Norway and Sweden, including restrictions such as school closures and travel prohibitions along with economic support, affected equity markets in both countries. Our dataset comprises a panel of data for Norway and Sweden over 221 trading days during the period 1 January to 5 November 2020. The result show that while non-pharmaceutical interventions had few or no effects on Norwegian stock market returns, they positively affected the stock market in Sweden, although the strength of this effect weakened with the increasing number of confirmed COVID-19 cases.

Feature Augmentation of Classifiers Using Learning Time Series Shapelets Transformation for Night Setback Classification of District Heating Substations

District heating systems that distribute heat through pipelines to residential and commercial buildings have been widely used in Northern Europe, and according to the latest study, district heating shares the most heat supply market in Sweden. Therefore, energy efficiency of district heating systems is of great interest to energy stakeholders. However, it is not uncommon that district heating systems fail to achieve the expected performance due to various faults or inappropriate operations. Night setback is one control strategy, which has been proved to be not a suitable setting for well-insulated modern buildings in terms of both economic factors and energy efficiency. From the literature, shapelets algorithms not only provide interpretable results but also proved to be effective in time series classification. However, they have not been explored to solve the problem in energy domain. In this study, a feature augmentation approach is proposed based on learning time series shapelets and shapelet transformation, aiming to improve the performance of classifiers for night setback classification. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, data of 10 anonymous substations in Sweden are used in the case study. The proposed method is applied to six commonly used baseline classifiers: Support Vector Classifier, Multilayer Perceptron Neural Network, Logistic Regression, K-Nearest Neighbor, Decision Trees, and Random Forest. Precision, recall, and f1 score are used as the performance measures. The results of out-of-sample testing show that it is possible to improve the generalization ability of classifiers by applying the proposed approach. In addition, the highest f1 score of out-of-sample testing is achieved by DT classifier whose f1 score is increased from 0.599 to 0.711 for identifying night setback case and from 0.749 to 0.808 for identifying nonnight setback case using the proposed feature augmentation approach.

Night setback identification of district heat substations using bidirectional long short term memory with attention mechanism

District heating systems that distribute heat through pipelines to residential and commercial buildings have been widely used in Northern Europe and according to the latest study (Werner, 2017) [1], district heating has the largest share of the heat supply market in Sweden. Therefore, energy efficiency of district heating systems is of great interest to energy stakeholders. However, it is common that district heating systems fail to achieve the expected performance due to various faults or inappropriate operations. Night setback is one control strategy that has been proved to be not a suitable setting for well insulated modern buildings in terms of both economic factor and energy efficiency. Especially, night setback leads to sudden morning peak that can be problematic to utility companies. In this study, a bidirectional long short term memory neural network based approach with attention mechanism is proposed for classifying substations that use night setback regularly. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, data of 10 anonymous substations in Sweden are used in the case study. Precision, recall, and f1 score are used as the performance measures. Results of out of sample testing show that the proposed approach outperform the baseline models in this study.

Swedish East India trade in a value-added analysis, c. 1730–1800

ABSTRACT The narrative of the Swedish East India Company (SEIC) is a well-known part of Sweden’s eighteenth century history. The company is known as a profitable venture, the only successful chartered company in Sweden, but with a limited impact upon the country’s economic development. In this paper, we employ a value-chain analysis to estimate the Swedish East India trade’s magnitude in terms of value-added. The results show that the success of the company was not based on monopolised domestic market in Sweden, a typical strategy of big chartered companies. The most valuable line of SEIC’s business (Chinese teas) was rather based on re-exports to other countries in Europe. Our quantitative estimates also show that the Swedish East India trade eventually made up a non-negligible share, and in particular a major share of the transport and trade sectors, of the Swedish economy during a long part of the eighteenth century.

Biogas Production from Food Residues—The Role of Trace Metals and Co-Digestion with Primary Sludge

The majority of municipal Wastewater Treatment Plants (WWTPs) in Sweden produce biogas from sewage sludge. In order to increase the methane production, co-digestion of internal sludge with Organic Fraction of Municipal Solid Waste (OFMSW) might be feasible in the future. The objective of this study was therefore to find a beneficial solution for the utilization of OFMSW at the WWTP in Varberg, Sweden. The effects of co-digesting primary sludge (PS) and OFMSW collected in the municipality, in different mixing ratios, were investigated by semi-continuous anaerobic digestion assays. Furthermore, the effects of the addition of a commercial trace elements mixture solution (CTES), available on the market in Sweden, were also examined. Co-digestion of OFMSW and PS resulted in specific methane yields of 404, 392, and 375 NmL CH4/g volatile solids (VS), obtained during semi-continuous operations of 301, 357 and 385 days, for the reactors fed with OMFSW:PS ratio of 4:1, 3:1, and 1:1, and at maximum organic loading rates (OLRs) achieved of 4.0, 4.0 and 5.0 gVS/L/d, respectively. Furthermore, mono-digestion of OFMSW failed already at OLR of 1.0 gVS/L/d, however, an OLR of 4.0 gVS/L/d could be achieved with addition of 14 µL/g VS Commercial Trace Element Solutions (CTES) leading to 363 mL CH4/g VS methane production. These experiments were running during 411 days. Hence, higher process efficiency was obtained when using co-digestion of OFMSW and PS compared to that of OFMSW in mono-digestion. Co-digestion is a more feasible option where a balanced Carbon/Nitrogen (C/N) ratio and nutrient supply can be maintained.

Migrant physicians\u2019 entrance and advancement in the Swedish medical labour market: a cross-sectional study

BackgroundWorldwide, physicians are migrating to new countries and want to practise their profession. However, they may experience difficulties doing so. To optimise and accelerate their entrance into and advancement within the Swedish healthcare system, there is an urgent need to explore how they are currently doing so, as their competences should be put to use without any unnecessary delay. The aim of the study was to explore how migrant physicians with a medical degree from outside EU/EEA enter and advance within the medical labour market in Sweden and to identify perceived barriers and facilitating aspects in the process. The empirical findings are discussed in light of Bourdieu’s concept symbolic capital as adapted in the Swedish medical field.MethodsA cross-sectional study with a self-administrated questionnaire was disseminated. A sample of 498 migrant physicians were identified. Descriptive statistical analysis and qualitative thematic analysis were used to analyse the data.ResultsThe response rate was 57% (n = 283). Respondents mainly found their first positions via spontaneous job applications, during internships, while participating in an educational intervention or via personal contacts. Perceived barriers to entering and advancing within the medical field in Sweden were mainly related to having a medical degree from and/or originating from another country, which could in turn represent discrimination and/or having one’s competence undervalued as a result. Facilitating aspects included having or developing contacts in Swedish healthcare and gaining proficiency or fluency in the Swedish language.ConclusionsWhen MPs find their first positions, the contacts they have developed appear to play a role, and when advancing in their positions, the active development of a variety of contacts seems to be beneficial. MPs experience a variety of barriers to entering and advancing within the field that could be related to discrimination. Many MPs perceived having their competences undervalued due to their origin or to being educated abroad. Based on the respondents’ experiences, our interpretation is that MPs as a group are hierarchically positioned lower in the Swedish medical field than physicians trained in the country. Facilitating aspects included educational interventions, having contacts and developing language skills. For optimal entry into the labour market, it is vitally important for MPs to learn the new language and obtain a job or internship in the field as soon as possible.

Conditional Density Forecast of Electricity Price Based on Ensemble ELM and Logistic EMOS

In recent years, probabilistic forecast of electricity price has become of particular interests to market participants as it can effectively model the uncertainties due to competitive market behaviors. Decision makers heavily rely on such forecast to formulate optimal strategies with minimal risk and maximum profits to deal with stochasticity in market and system operation. Different from the widely used volatility models with least square or maximum likelihood techniques in probabilistic forecast of prices, this paper proposes a reliable continuous ranked probability score-oriented predictive density construction strategy for day-ahead electricity prices. The proposed method effectively quantifies the uncertainty involved in extreme learning machine network by applying an ensemble structure and a logistic distribution-based ensemble model output statistics technique. Moreover, an efficient covariance structure directly determined by the empirical correlations of observed probabilistic forecast series is developed to capture the essential temporal interdependence thus to facilitate the operational scenarios’ generation. Through validating on the real day-ahead market in Sweden, the proposed hybrid approach proves to provide superior full distributional forecasting skill over the existing approaches.

Handicapped persons on the labour market in Sweden

Handicapped persons on the labour market in Sweden

One market, two perspectives, three implications: on the development of the special education market in Sweden

ABSTRACTThis study examines the development of the special education market through changes in demand and supply and discusses its implications on the system of education of students in need of special support informed by two theoretical perspectives. The study found out that the number of students and schools in the special education market has increased. The relative size of the special education market on the demand side has remained stable while an increase is observed on the supply side. The results also show that the private sector has grown relatively better than the public sector on both the demand and supply sides. Almost all the market segments have increased on both the demand and supply sides, especially the resource schools in the special education market segment. Based on these results, three implications are observed and discussed, namely a diverse and an extended special education system, increasing segregation within the special education system and a relative stability in the incidence of student exclusion.

The labor market in Sweden since the 1990s

The economic crisis in the early 1990s brought about a dramatic increase in unemployment and a similar decrease in labor force participation. Unemployment declined afterwards, but stabilized at around 6–7%—more than twice as high as before the crisis. Today, the unemployment rate is lower than the EU average, though Sweden no longer stands out in this respect. The 2008 financial crisis had small effects on the Swedish labor market. Employment in industry declined sharply and then remained stagnant, but employment in the service sectors has continued to grow steadily.

Household installation of solar panels – Motives and barriers in a 10-year perspective

This article compares what homeowners identified as motives and barriers for installing photovoltaic panels in Sweden in 2008–2009 and in 2014–2016. Earlier research has provided snapshots of existing barriers and motives, but not analyzed changes over time, as is done here. Between 2008 and 2014, the PV market in Sweden changed profoundly, with the introduction of subsidies and changes in rules, making it easier for households to sell electricity they produce. At the same time, regulations have increased for the households.Environmental motives have been consistent over the years. Financial incentives had become an important motive by 2014–2016. The investment cost remained a barrier, even though it has been reduced over the years. New barriers in the second period are problems relating to increased administrative burden and finding information about market conditions such as which companies exist and how much a household will be paid when selling electricity to the grid. In 2008–2009, households installed the PV panels on their own and installation was a major barrier. This had changed radically by 2014–2016, when most of the households studied bought turnkey systems with installation included.

Электроэнергетический рынок Швеции: политика ценообразования и экономическое регулирование

The subject of the article covers the transformation of the electricity market in Sweden starting from the 2000s. The author indicates the basic principles of pricing and economic regulation mechanisms used in the country. Main problems in the electric power market of Sweden at the present stage are also considered.

Validation of immigrants’ prior foreign learning as a framing practice

This paper explores the attempts by public officials and caseworkers to manage an overflow of immigrants in the labour market in Sweden. I draw on notions of framing and overflowing, inspired by Michel Callon's (1998) work on the organizing of market-based exchange relationships. I argue that validation is best understood as a framing practice, aimed at creating an understanding for the vastness of foreign experience – including skills and competence – of recent immigrants to Sweden, to make this experience measurable and manageable. Validation as a framing practice thereby exemplifies the widespread trust in framing as a way to normalise overflows – to turn overflows into normal flows. However, as the ethnography-inspired study reported here shows, repeated framing does not remove overflows; instead, it produces new and different types of overflows. In the conclusions, I emphasise the heavy investments required by validation in contrast with the fragility of the results it produces in the context of migration management.