The Ministry of Finance commissioned a report from Etlatieto Ltd on maritime operating conditions, competitiveness and the adaptability of this sector. The competitiveness of cargo ship has significantly improved when mixed-nationality crews were allowed and the Tonnage Tax Act went into force....

Subsidies to business sector R&D can be given either as R&D tax credits or direct grants. Majority of the OECD countries use both policy tools, Finland has used only grants. The Finnish support system has been functioning relatively well, but it has been argued that it does not support well...

Subsidies to commercial R&D can be given as R&D tax credits or through direct grants. Tax incentives have become an increasingly popular policy tool over the last decades. In this note I discuss the pros and cons of the two forms of subsidies in light of Norways experience with R&D policy. I...

This study analyses how R&D expenditure impacts the productivity of companies. We analyse the productivity impact of R&D using a large panel dataset of Finnish firms over a nine-year period from 1996 to 2004. Our results are two-fold. In the short run (in 1-2 years) we find no statistically...

An increasing number of countries support private R&D activity by fiscal incentives in response to the tightening international tax competition. Consequently, the importance of direct R&D subsidies is diminishing. This paper describes R&D tax incentive mechanisms in OECD countries and surveys...

It is popular to promote private R&D investments with tax credits or tax allowances in the OECD countries. This report depicts the justifications and criteria presented in economic literature, which should be used when decisions about tax incentives are made. The main argument is that firms do...

The report surveys the incentive effects of taxes on capital and entrepreneurial income in light of the research in the field. The cash flow tax, the ACE tax and the tax on distributed profits of mature firms are known to be neutral with respect to the investment decisions. It is not widely...

We compare different tax incentive schemes for private R&D investments using a numerical model of R&D-investments and firm dynamics. We find that tax incentives that are based on the incremental annual spending increase firms' R&D spending much more than tax incentives that are based on the...

Evaluating the possible consequences of R&D tax incentives before their introduction is challenging, not least because the details of the system remain unknown, and because the ultimate reactions and responses of various actors involved remain uncertain. In order to shed some light on the issue,...

This paper reviews the recent literature on the relocation of headquarters (HQs). Overall results show that full and direct international relocations of corporate HQs are rare events. However, there is a trend that MNEs increasingly unbundle their HQs so as to spread their different HQs...