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,...

We study the use of pension funds in the Finnish earnings-related pension system with the aim of smoothing contributions over time under demographic and economic risks. Smoothing is affected by the revisions in long-term forecasts and is thus imperfect. As a partially funded defined-benefit...

This study analyses the adjustment of the Finnish earnings-related pension system to very low economic growth. The results show that a permanently lower growth rate of the wage bill would raise only moderately the pension contribution rates in the long term. This is because also the benefits are...

This study simulates with two dynamic models the macroeconomic and public finance outcomes of a reduction in the corporate income tax rate in Finland. FOG-model is a dynamic CGE model, which is calibrated to the Finnish economy. NiGEM is a multi-country macroeconometric model. The results show...

This study analyses those country characteristics, which lead those regions to become as productive operation and innovation environments for firms and research centres. This study shows that those countries who invest wisely to develop their innovation environment will be successful in high...

The study shows that the exceptional drop in volume of Finland's GDP in 2009 - as much as 8 per cent -was to a large extent due to huge decline in exports and production of one industry, ICT. The contribution of ICT (or electronics and electro-technical industry) to GDP decline was close to two...

The study shows that the exceptional drop in volume of Finland's GDP in 2009 - as much as 8 per cent - was to a large extent due to huge decline in exports and production of one industry, ICT. The contribution of ICT (or electronics and electro-technical industry) to GDP decline was close to two...

This study analyses those country characteristics, which lead those regions to become as productive operation and innovation environments for firms and research centres. This study shows that those countries who invest wisely to develop their innovation environment will be successful in high...