Finland’s population is aging rapidly by international comparison. The shrinking working-age population means that the burden of increasing pension and health care expenditures is placed on a smaller group of employed workers, while the scope for economic growth through increased labor input...

Finland’s population is aging rapidly by international comparison. The shrinking working-age population means that the burden of increasing pension and health care expenditures is placed on a smaller group of employed workers, while the scope for economic growth through increased labor input...

In this paper we evaluate whether the accuracy of Finnish unemployment rate forecasts can be improved by utilising the information in the flows into and out of unemployment. We compare and contrast different methodologies for constructing the flows. Our results indicate that Bayesian vector...

In Finland the elderly unemployed are allowed to collect unemployment benefits up to the age of 60, when they can retire via a particular unemployment pension. In 1997 the eligibility age of persons benefiting from this scheme was raised from 53 to 55. We consider changes in the risk of...

There are over 3 billion searches globally on Google every day. This report examines whether Google search queries can be used to predict the present and the near future unemployment rate in Finland. Predicting the present and the near future is of interest, as the official records of the state...