SWEDISH SOUTH ASIAN STUDIES NETWORK

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Economics, Department of Business Administration and Social Sciences, Luleå University of Technology:

Postal address: Nationalekonomi, Luleå Tekniska Universitet, SE-971 87 Luleå, Sweden
Visiting address: Entrance A1, Universitetsvägen, Universitetsområdet, Porsön, Luleå
Fax: +46 (0)920 49 20 35
Web page: http://www.ltu.se/ies/d3877/2.643/d734/d735/d3891/d431?l=en

Contact person: PhD Olle Hage, phone: +46 (0)920 49 23 36 (photo to the right)

Luleå University of Technology is one of the few universities in Sweden that offers economics as a stand alone education program. The Faculty is involved in major national and international projects in the field of energy and natural resources economics. Courses in economics continue to attract a large number of students. During the academic year 2002/2003 approximately 1,570 students attended the courses! The research program was initiated in 1992 with a strong emphasis towards international policy. The Department's research is focused on international environmental, energy and natural resources problems. The focus has been adopted so as to guarantee a high a standard research and to facilitate collaboration with other departments at Luleå University of Technology. Besides the Department collaborates internationally with prominent research and educational institutions organizations all over the World.

South Asia related activities at the department:

The Internationally renowned economist Professor Marian Radetzki has been head of the department since 1991, but he does not spend much time in Luleå. For many years he was based at the Institute for International Economic Studies, Stockholm University, and in the late 1980’s he worked as Visiting Professor of Mineral Economics at Colorado School of Mines, USA. During the 1960’s he also spent four years in India, working for the Swedish Cooperative Union and Wholesale Society as Director of the International Cooperative Alliance Education Center for South and East Asia in New Delhi. Throughout the years he has been much engaged in research on the economic development of the Third World. Among his publications are found ”Financing Mining Projects in Developing Countries” (1979) and ”Developing Countries: The New Growth Markets” (1990). More information at Prof. Radetzki’s homepage.

In 2004 a collaboration was initiated between the Dept. of Economics and the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) in Kozhikode, Kerala, India. It was funded by a Linnaeus Palme exchange programme grant.
Olle Hage has been in charge of the collaboration project in Luleå, and on the Indian side Prof. P. Nandakumar (photo to the left). P. Nandakumar has a Swedish connection in that he took his doctoral degree in Economics (1985) from the University of Stockholm, and he has been a research fellow/faculty member at the Institute for International Economic Studies, University of Stockholm; the National Institute of Economic Research, Stockholm; and the Södertörn University College. Since 2000 he is working at IIM in Kozhikode. His reserach interests lie in the areas of trade, international finance, macroeconomic policy, development economics, trade-related environmental issues and healthcare management.
As part of the Linnaeus Palme exchange programme, Prof. Nandakumar has come to Luleå on a regular basis. In 2006 a teacher from Luleå also went to India and gave a course in Environmental Economics. During 2007 the exchange increased to two Swedish and two Indian teachers going each way.