Trafficking in Human Beings.THB unit in Stockholm

Our police work against human trafficking started in 2004 on behalf of the government. (Police Department received 300 000 euros which was divided between the three largest cities in Sweden, Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö. Then, each police district had to find out how .THB looked like in their district and how it best could be combated.

Teacher training in "multicultural" Sweden

This paper builds on the experience of the on-going, mainly ethnographic, research project called Teacher training in’ multicultural’ Sweden. Class, gender and ethnicity. In this multi-disciplinary project a number of scholars conduct research through participant observation in, and through the study and analysis of documents from, a number of teacher training colleges in Sweden. In this paper I will use empirical material gathered from two teacher training colleges to discuss this basic issue. One college is situated in a suburb outside Stockholm and it consciously portrays itself as a college for ‘multicultural’ students who will later teach in ‘multicultural’ suburbs. The other college is situated in a small town and although ‘multiculturalism’ is seen as important in the educational system students with mainly ‘Swedish’ background are recruited. In the first college ‘differences’ are lauded and students are encouraged to ponder upon and develop their ethnic profile. In the second ‘similarities’ are more taken for granted. I will argue, however, that within these colleges ‘differences’ and ’similarities’ are not only discussed but actually created against a backdrop of macro-constraints which are not much scrutinized within these colleges.

What underlies localization and urbanization economies? Evidence from the location of new firms

The objective of this paper is to analyze why firms in some industries locate in specialized economic environments (localization economies) while those in other industries prefer large city locations (urbanization economies). To this end, we examine the location decisions of new manufacturing firms in Spain at the city level and for narrowly defined industries (three-digit level). First, we estimate firm location models to obtain estimates that reflect the importance of localization and urbanization economies in each industry. In a second step, we regress these estimates on industry characteristics that are related to the potential importance of three agglomeration theories, namely, labor market pooling, input sharing and knowledge spillovers. Localization effects are low and urbanization effects are high in knowledge-intensive industries, suggesting that firms (partly) locate in large cities to reap the benefits of inter-industry knowledge spillovers. We also find that localization effects are high in industries that employ workers whose skills are more industry-specific, suggesting that industries (partly) locate in specialized economic environments to share a common pool of specialized workers.

The Three Horsemen of Growth: Plague, War and Urbanization in Early Modern Europe

How did Europe overtake China? We construct a simple Malthusian model with two sectors, and use it to explain how European per capita incomes and urbanization rates could surge ahead of Chinese ones. That living standards could exceed subsistence levels at all in a Malthusian setting should be surprising. Rising fertility and falling mortality ought to have reversed any gains. We show that productivity growth in Europe can only explain a small fraction of rising living standards. Population dynamics - changes of the birth and death schedules - were far more important drivers of the longrun Malthusian equilibrium. The Black Death raised wages substantially, creating important knock-on effects. Because of Engel's Law, demand for urban products increased, raising urban wages and attracting migrants from rural areas. European cities were unhealthy, especially compared to Far Eastern ones. Urbanization pushed up aggregate death rates. This effect was reinforced by more frequent wars (fed by city wealth) and disease spread by trade. Thus, higher wages themselves reduced population pressure. Without technological change, our model can account for the sharp rise in European urbanization as well as permanently higher per capita incomes. We complement our calibration exercise with a detailed analysis of intra-European growth in the early modern period. Using a panel of European states in the period 1300-1700, we show that war frequency can explain a good share of the divergent fortunes within Europe.

International accounting harmonisation - A comparison of Spain, Sweden and Austria

Despite attempts to secure harmonisation of accounting practice,significant variations in accounting rules and practice continueto arise in European countries, variations which give rise tocompliance costs for multinational companies.Firstly, this paper considers the relevance of internationalaccounting harmonisation for European business. It then proceedsto examine accounting regulation in three countries: Spain, Swedenand Austria, highlighting the key regulatory issues of the 'trueand fair' view requirement and the link between taxation andaccounting. The three countries are selected because of theinteresting contrasts which they provide; these contrasts areexamined in detail in the paper.The work is based upon a series of interviews carried out withleading accounting practitioners in the three countries during1996-97.The paper concludes that there are significant obstacles toaccounting harmonisation in Europe and that there is potentialfor continuing diversity of national accounting practice.

The three horsemen of riches: Plague, war and urbanization in early modern Europe

How did Europe escape the "Iron Law of Wages?" We construct a simple Malthusian model withtwo sectors and multiple steady states, and use it to explain why European per capita incomes andurbanization rates increased during the period 1350-1700. Productivity growth can only explain a smallfraction of the rise in output per capita. Population dynamics changes of the birth and death schedules were far more important determinants of steady states. We show how a major shock to population cantrigger a transition to a new steady state with higher per-capita income. The Black Death was such ashock, raising wages substantially. Because of Engel's Law, demand for urban products increased, andurban centers grew in size. European cities were unhealthy, and rising urbanization pushed up aggregatedeath rates. This effect was reinforced by diseases spread through war, financed by higher tax revenues.In addition, rising trade also spread diseases. In this way higher wages themselves reduced populationpressure. We show in a calibration exercise that our model can account for the sustained rise in Europeanurbanization as well as permanently higher per capita incomes in 1700, without technological change.Wars contributed importantly to the "Rise of Europe", even if they had negative short-run effects. We thustrace Europe s precocious rise to economic riches to interactions of the plague shock with the belligerentpolitical environment and the nature of cities.

Barnbyn Skå (Skå, la vila dels infants) 1947-1972: L’experiència terapèutica de Gustav Jonsson amb infants «irrecuperables»

The article presents the trajectory of the Swedish psychiatrist Gustav Jonsson (1907-1994) who, in the 1940s, revolutionised the therapeutic and educational treatment of children and young people, considered irreclaimable from the social point of view, who were committed to educational institutions. It analyses the social development of the Welfare State in Sweden, the legal framework of child protection, as well as the context of Swedish residential care centres for children and young people in the first half of the 20th century in order to go further into the psychological and educational work conducted with the Barnbyn Skå group. Jonsson redirected the analysis of violent behaviours that were manifest in these children and young people which made them intractable from the educational point of view and established elements of psychoanalytical understanding, based on a systemic approach in which the family context became essential in order to understand the children’s difficulties. Barnbyn Skå was the centre which, under the guidance of Jonsson, developed this new therapeutic and pedagogic approach. The educational work carried out there exceeded the traditional model in terms of control and surveillance. The methods were considered radical from within pedagogy and caused great controversy which led the centre to continuous investigations on behalf of the Social Services of Stockholm between 1960 and 1970. For several decades Barnbyn Skå has been considered a pioneering experience in the field of Scandinavian child psychiatry.