Background: The purpose of this study is to analyse what factors that explain individual differences in walking and cycling when commuting in different parts of Sweden. Walking and cycling is potentially accessible all over the country, while well developed public transport is mainly a viable option in densely populated areas. Methodology: The importance of differences in local characteristics for the choice of transport mode will be scrutinised, together with individual differences in attitudes andpreferences. Data is collected through a survey sent to people living in five Swedish municipalities with different demographic, socio-economic ,infrastructural and geographical characteristics. Results: The results for the pooled sample indicate that the choice to walk/cycle when commuting is related to health considerations and environmental concerns. Distance to work/school is also an important factor. Men tend to be more prone to choose active transport, and so do respondents with lower income. The results further reveal that availability of safe routes for walking and cycling are important for the choice to walk/cycle when commuting. As health considerations are important, we suggest policy makers to stress health motives when they promote walking and cycling in the future. Our results further suggest that it is important to consider availability and accessibility in community planning, and to prioritize safety and comfort of walking and cycling, not least in parts of the country where public transport is not an economically viable option.

The way in which mining contributes to job opportunities in the region where it takes place has become increasingly important for the industry’s relations to the local community. The employment impacts of mining are however far from straightforward to assess. Considering these uncertainties about real-life job impacts, it is vital that there are sound assessments of these employment effects. The purpose of this paper is to apply a novel econometric approach to assess mining-induced job multipliers in the empirical context of northern Sweden. This analysis employs data on the number of employees in selected non-mining sectors and in the mining sector, respectively, and covering the relatively recent mining boom period (2003–2013). We also highlight differences across the two main mining counties in northern Sweden. The results show a positive statistical relationship between increases in the number of employees in the mining sector and changes in the number of employees in other sectors. The private services’ sector is particularly affected, while the industrial sector also benefits in the specific case of mining municipalities. The results also indicate relatively large inter-county differences, in turn highlighting the importance of addressing the context-specific circumstances when estimating the employment effects of mining.

Events that change the global economy rapidly, without warning, in principle strongly affect mining, which is one of the pillars of global development. After the first months of the Covid-19 pandemic, the mining pillar seems to be relatively stable. In this study, thanks to the meeting of an international team, it was possible to collect and compare a set of data on the impact on mining. In contrast to the general assessments of the stability of the mining sector, the authors decided to assess the impact of Covid-19 at individual stages of the mining project life cycle. In this way, it was possible to identify the most impacted fragments of the mining pillar. It was assessed that the highest influence of Covid-19 is observed in projects implementing feasibility studies and in projects for the development of new mines. The same is true of extracting residual resources in mines prior to the closure decision. The medium impact was confirmed at the exploration and discovery stage. The authors conclude that the impact on the current mining production is smaller and the effects in this case are short term, which is mainly due to a continued strong demand for minerals in China, which has balanced the weaker demand in other parts of the world. On the other hand, stopping the exploration and development of new mines will have a long-term impact, including an increased possibility of disruption of the future security of supplies of raw materials.

This paper performs a quantitative analysis of iron ore prices, and is an extension of Wårell ( 2014 ), which analyzed the change in iron ore pricing regime on iron ore prices using data from 2003 until September 2012. However, considering that the iron ore market still was characterized by surging prices in 2012, it is of interest to see if the same conclusions hold today when the latest commodity boom has come to an end. The quantitative analysis uses monthly data between January 2003 and June 2017, and performs both statistical tests for structural breaks and a reduced price regression of the most important factors for iron ore prices during the time period. The overall results indicate that the change in pricing regime does not have a significant impact on the iron ore prices when extending the time period; rather, it is the end of the commodity boom in 2014 that is picked up as a structural break in the price series. Furthermore, results regarding whether the variables are cointegrated are more inconclusive when analyzing the entire commodity boom. However, the result that GDP growth in China has had the strongest impact on iron ore prices is though robust when extending the time period. To conclude, even though the commodity boom now has come to an end the developments in China still seems to be the most influential factor determining international iron ore prices.

During the last few decades many European countries have developed policies directed towards mineral deposit safeguarding. However, as other land uses often are in conflict with mineral deposit safeguarding, the implementation of these policies is many times more difficult in practice. The aim of this paper is to investigate the link between land use planning and mineral resources, when using a shared value perspective. The analysis is focused on the mineral-rich Nordic countries—Sweden, Norway and Finland—and a number of mining projects are analyzed. The analysis rests in Porter and Kramer’s arguments for the importance of creating shared values. The results indicate that a shared value perspective has been present in the analyzed case studies, as many of the key ways for creating shared value are identified in the projects. This illustrates the importance of linking social value to economic value in mining projects, even if this is not clearly stated in the relevant legislation. As it is often the unpredictability of the regulatory framework that hinders mineral extraction, it is suggested that Social Impact Assessments (or similar) are formalized in the regulatory framework to ensure that social value is linked more clearly to the land use process related to access to minerals.