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...

The share of private consumption in gross domestic product is significant; therefore, private consumption has a great influence on economic growth, which makes it a major concept in economics. The purpose of the paper is to estimate and evaluate different forecasting models for private...

This report examines whether Google search queries can be used to predict the present and the near future house prices in Finland. Compared to a simple benchmark model, Google searches improve the prediction of the present house price index by 7.5 % measured by mean absolute error. In addition,...

Machinery and metal products industry employs about 130,000 people in Finland and another 100,000 people in foreign subsidiaries of Finnish companies. This report focuses on this sector's qualitative or substantive projections for vocational education and training (vocational schools and...

The renewal of Finnish manufacturing companies has often been addressed through their innovative activities. But companies do renew themselves in many other ways. This report takes into account, in addition to innovative activities, product and service range, supply and distribution channels,...

There are almost 200,000 enterprises operating in the Finnish service sector, combined. However, not all of the service industries are the same. Some services have become independent of geographical locations, meaning that they can be exported, much like physical products. Other services still...

International literature suggests that productivity growth of the global frontier firms – those in the best five percent – has diverged from the others during the 2000s. We study this issue using Finnish firm-level data. We find that the productivity of the Finnish frontier firms does not...

This study examines the researcher's perspective on the impact of recent major changes in the Finnish research environment. Three virtually simultaneous changes are of special importance. The first is the on-going renewal of the Universities Act governing the Finnish higher education system in...

Finnish university technology transfer is currently caught in the turbulences of major changes in the national innovation system. Three virtually simultaneous changes are of special importance. The first is the massive on-going renewal of the Universities Act governing the Finnish higher...

This study analyzes trends in specialization of the Finnish industry since the 1980s. Low technology industries, such as pulp and paper, have had traditionally a large proportion of the Finnish industrial output. During the recent decades their share of output has decreased significantly and...