Despite the implementation of negative nominal interest rates by several advanced economies in the last decade and the many papers that have been written about this novel policy tool, there is still much we do not know about the effectiveness of this instrument. The pass-through of negative...

Cyclically adjusted government budget balances have become increasingly popular as a means of analysing the fiscal situation and changes in policy that result from the intentional actions of the government. As the actual budget balances are affected both by cyclical factors ('automatic...

Unemployment is now the key issue for economic policy in the OECD and Europe in particular. By examining data from the period 1962-1996 for two highly different small open OECD economies, Finland and New Zealand, in a VEC model this paper seeks to cast light on three questions: the degree to...

This paper studies the welfare effects of Ramp;D subsidies. We develop a model of continuous optimal treatment with outcome heterogeneity where the treatment outcome depends on applicant investment. The model takes into account heterogeneous application costs and identifies the treatment effect...

This paper attempts to describe and compare developments in the components of Finland's net international investment position (NIIP). The data consist of sectoral flows and valuation items over the period 1985 - 1998, which is, for analytical purposes, broken down into two subperiods: before and...

We show theoretically that a proportional Ramp;D subsidy accelerates innovation activity at all degrees of competition in the modern Schumpeterian growth model, but less so at high degrees of competition. We then use company-level data on patenting activity, product market competition and Ramp;D...

This paper presents Aino 2.0 – the dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model currently used at the Bank of Finland for forecasting and policy analysis. The paper provides a detailed theoretical description of the model, its estimation and how it can be used to interpret the evolution...

This paper investigates leading indicators of systemic banking crises in a panel of 11 EU countries, with a particular focus on Finland. We use quarterly data from 1980Q1 to 2013Q2, in order to create a large number of macro-financial indicators, as well as their various transformations. We make...

We conduct a welfare analysis of R&D subsidies and tax credits using a model of innovation policy in corporating externalities, limited R&D participation and finanial market imperfetions. We estimate the model using R&D projet level data from Finland. The optimal R&D tax credit rate (0.24) is...

This paper investigates the role of individual incentive (II) and group incentive (GI) pay as determinants of worker separation. We use a large linked employer-employee panel data set for full-time male manufacturing workers during 1997-2006 from Finland. We follow actual job spells and switches...