Unintentional Climate Policy: Swedish experiences of carbon dioxide emissions and economic growth 1950-2005

This paper examines the development of carbon dioxide emissions in Sweden, especiallyn with a focus on the absolute reductions during the post-war period, during the 1970s and 1980s. The paper shows that the largest reductions were achieved before the introduction of an active climate policy in 1991. This was in turn the result of significant improvements in energy efficiency and energy conversion, while structural changes were considerably less important. One reason behind this decoupling process may be that the active energy policy put pressure on households and industries to conserve energy and to substitute from oil to electricity and biofuels. The process was substantially reinforced by the development of world oil prices in combination with the development of domestic electricity prices, where nuclear power seems to have played an important role.Sweden; climate policy; economic growth; carbon dioxide reduction; carbon tax

Distribution of candidate genes for experimentally induced arthritis in rats

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Rat models are frequently used to link genomic regions to experimentally induced arthritis in quantitative trait locus (QTL) analyses. To facilitate the search for candidate genes within such regions, we have previously developed an application (CGC) that uses weighted keywords to rank genes based on their descriptive text. In this study, CGC is used for analyzing the localization of candidate genes from two viewpoints: distribution over the rat genome and functional connections between arthritis QTLs.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>To investigate if candidate genes identified by CGC are more likely to be found inside QTLs, we ranked 2403 genes genome wide in rat. The number of genes within different ranges of CGC scores localized inside and outside QTLs was then calculated. Furthermore, we investigated if candidate genes within certain QTLs share similar functions, and if these functions could be connected to genes within other QTLs. Based on references between genes in OMIM, we created connections between genes in QTLs identified in two distinct rat crosses. In this way, QTL pairs with one QTL from each cross that share an unexpectedly high number of gene connections were identified. The genes that were found to connect a pair of QTLs were then functionally analysed using a publicly available classification tool.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Out of the 2403 genes ranked by the CGC application, 1160 were localized within QTL regions. No difference was observed between highly and lowly rated genes. Hence, highly rated candidate genes for arthritis seem to be distributed randomly inside and outside QTLs. Furthermore, we found five pairs of QTLs that shared a significantly high number of interconnected genes. When functionally analyzed, most genes connecting two QTLs could be included in a single functional cluster. Thus, the functional connections between these genes could very well be involved in the development of an arthritis phenotype.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>From the genome wide CGC search, we conclude that candidate genes for arthritis in rat are randomly distributed between QTL and non-QTL regions. We do however find certain pairs of QTLs that share a large number of functionally connected candidate genes, suggesting that these QTLs contain a number of genes involved in similar functions contributing to the arthritis phenotype.</p

Technical change, carbon dioxide reduction and energy consumption in the Swedish pulp and paper industry 1973-2006

This study examines the historical relation between carbon dioxide emission and output growth in the Swedish pulp and paperindustry 1973-2006. We find that the industry achieved an 80 per cent reduction in CO2 emission. Foremost energy substitution but also efficiently improvement contributed to the reduction. Growing prices of fossil fuel due to market price change and taxes and subvention, explains most of the efficiency improvements and substitution. Taxes on energy explain 40 per cent of the total reduction in CO2 intensity. Most of the reduction took place before the implementation of active climate policy in 1991.Sweden; Climate policy; economic growth; carbon dioxide reduction; carbon tax; paper and plant industry

Дотримання принципу науковості при формуванні у майбутніх викладачів природничих дисциплін сучасної наукової картини світу

(uk) Стаття присвячена актуальній проблемі формування у майбутніх викладачів природничих дисциплін сучасної наукової картини світу.(en) The article is devoted the issue of the day of forming for the future teachers of natural disciplines of modern scientific picture of the world

How Tolerant Should Inflation-Targeting Central Banks Be? Selecting the Proper Tolerance Band : Lessons from Sweden

Should an inflation-targeting central bank have an explicit tolerance band around its inflation target? This paper provides an answer derived from the Swedish experience. The Riksbank is exceptional in the sense that it first adopted and later abolished an explicit band and is currently considering bringing it back. We conclude that the band should be explicit for several reasons. Most important, an inflation-targeting central bank should be open and transparent to the public regarding its actual ability to control inflation. We discuss how a numerical measure of the proper width of the band can be constructed to foster communication and credibility

Ranking candidate genes in rat models of type 2 diabetes

© 2009 Andersson et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licens

GDP, not the Bond Yield, should Remain the Anchor of the EU Fiscal Framework

Declining bond yields and rising public debts have caused many economists to suggest raising the debt ceiling in the EU’s Stability and Growth Pact. Implicitly, they argue for replacing GDP as the anchor with the bond yield. We discuss the risks of such a shift. While such a change would provide short-term relief to highly indebted EU member states, it is based on the expectation that bond yields will remain low for the foreseeable future. The historical record, however, suggests that prolonged periods of low real bond yields are eventually replaced by periods of high real bond yields. And this phase may have already started. From a long-term sustainability perspective, we conclude that GDP serves as a better long-term anchor for the EU fiscal framework than the bond rate

The historical relation between banking, insurance and economic

We examine empirically the dynamic historical relation between banking, insurance economic (income) growth in Sweden using time-series data from 1830 to 1998. We examine long-run historical trends in the data using econometric tests for cointegration and Granger causality. Our results indicate that the development of domestic banking, but not insurance, preceded economic growth in Sweden during the nineteenth century, while Granger causality was reversed in the twentieth century. We also find that the development of bank lending in the nineteenth century increased the demand for insurance as well as promoting economic growth. In later periods, the development of insurance fosters demand for banking services but only in times of economic prosperity. For the entire period of our analysis, we find that banking is the predominant influence on both economic growth and the demand for insurance. In contrast, the insurance market appears to be driven more by the pace of growth in the economy rather than leading economic development. Therefore, we conclude that financial intermediation, particularly banking, is an important prerequisite for stimulating economic growth and argue that our results could have important policy implications for contemporary emerging economies that are developing their financial and legal infrastructures

A web tool for finding gene candidates associated with experimentally induced arthritis in the rat

Rat models are frequently used for finding genes contributing to the arthritis phenotype. In most studies, however, limitations in the number of animals result in a low resolution. As a result, the linkage between the autoimmune experimental arthritis phenotype and the genomic region, that is, the quantitative trait locus, can cover several hundred genes. The purpose of this work was to facilitate the search for candidate genes in such regions by introducing a web tool called Candidate Gene Capture (CGC) that takes advantage of free text data on gene function. The CGC tool was developed by combining genomic regions in the rat, associated with the autoimmune experimental arthritis phenotype, with rat/human gene homology data, and with descriptions of phenotypic gene effects and selected keywords. Each keyword was assigned a value, which was used for ranking genes based on their description of phenotypic gene effects. The application was implemented as a web-based tool and made public at . The CGC application ranks gene candidates for 37 rat genomic regions associated with autoimmune experimental arthritis phenotypes. To evaluate the CGC tool, the gene ranking in four regions was compared with an independent manual evaluation. In these sample tests, there was a full agreement between the manual ranking and the CGC ranking for the four highest-ranked genes in each test, except for one single gene. This indicates that the CGC tool creates a ranking very similar to that made by human inspection. The exceptional gene, which was ranked as a gene candidate by the CGC tool but not in the manual evaluation, was found to be closely associated with rheumatoid arthritis in additional literature studies. Genes ranked by the CGC tools as less likely gene candidates, as well as genes ranked low, were generally rated in a similar manner to those done manually. Thus, to find genes contributing to experimentally induced arthritis, we consider the CGC application to be a helpful tool in facilitating the evaluation of large amounts of textual information

Membership in Mutual Health Insurance Societies: The Case of Swedish Manufacturing, circa 1900

Industrialization brought significant economic and social changes. As a response to the risk of income loss due to illness and workplace accidents, mutual health insurance was the main financial vehicle for workers at the turn of the twentieth century across the Western world. We studied individual and firm-level determinants of membership in health insurance societies among male workers in Swedish manufacturing by using matched employer- employee data from the tobacco, printing, and mechanical engineering industries. Such data are extremely rare but important for our purpose. They cover all workers (i.e., members and non-members) and firms in a specific year around 1900 (N>12,000). In the years before the first statutory attempts to improve working conditions, we find remarkably high rates of membership, especially in mechanical engineering. We also find an association between membership and age, which is mainly a difference between younger and older adults, but the societies’ egalitarian pricing gave workers no reason to defer enrolment until a higher age related to health problems. Social interaction may explain early membership in the printing and tobacco industries, where we find a positive association between membership among older workers and the enrolment of younger workers