Mikael Olsson

FDI in the post-EU accession Baltic Sea Region: A global or a regional concern?

Abstract This paper investigates the dynamics of FDIs in the Baltic Sea Region (BSR) by applying the Poisson Pseudo-Maximum Likelihood estimation method on a gravity model. In particular, we analyze the influence of macro and spatial factors on investment stock changes and discuss whether the origin of these investments and the 2004 EU enlargement have had any effects on BSR FDIs. Our results suggest that EU enlargement has been significant for FDI activity in the region, and that FDI is basically a regional issue as it tends to be bilateral within the region. However, the same results also suggest that geographic distance is not a significant factor. We conclude that while being traditional in nature, the BSR FDI pattern is undergoing changes towards a lesser degree of geographic bias.

The Swedish Financial Revolution and the Insurance Industry

The financial sector is, of course, a complex nexus of markets, organizations and institutions. The aim of this chapter is to highlight the insurance industry and its role as a supplier of external finance, but also its role as part of an emerging financial sector. Initially though, it bears pointing out that insurance as a phenomenon has played an essential role in the formation of modern society: the reduction of risks connected to large-scale industrial investments and the enhancement of individual safety being two of the more prominent advances connected to the evolution of insurance.1 However, in this chapter we concentrate on the evolvement of the industry primarily as a source of external finance in supporting the industrial revolution in Sweden and the related question of whether the emergence of a domestic insurance market was part of a financial revolution.