Radical innovations require risk-taking. However, it is hard to find an objective measure for innovation investments that would take riskiness into account. In this paper, we investigate how a simple measure of firms’ innovation investments, namely the employee share of managers and...

Elderly people could markedly increase they standard of living by releasing their housing equity. Purchase of a single-payment life annuity would increase the benefits of this release. The tax treatment of these annuities is, however, very strict in Finland, because both yield and capital are...

Recent macroeconomic literature has stressed the importance of resource allocation between firms for aggregate productivity. An important issue, therefore, is how to measure allocative efficiency. We compare popular indicators of allocative efficiency, paying special attention to firm turnover....

Abstract:We develop a model of the housing market that features both financial and matching frictions. In the model, risk-averse households may save or borrow in order to smooth consumption over time and finance owner housing. Each household either rents or owns its house. Some renter households...

In this study, we review the connection between individuals private wealth and their timing of the retirement. The study begins with a review of related international literature. In the second section, we describe how Finnish citizens have responded when asked about the impact of their wealth on...

This study investigates the impact that pension policy measures aiming to extend working lives have on working lives, retirement ages and income distribution, as well as on the fiscal sustainability of the earnings-related pension system and public finances. Our research report is divided into...

We consider a reform that would replace the current Finnish unemployment insurance (UI) scheme with individual unemployment accounts. The reform would provide additional pensions for individuals who end up with a positive account balance at retirement age without restricting unemployment...

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...

We analyze how the tax treatment of voluntary retirement insurance has influenced individuals retirement decisions. Before 2005, the after-tax return to voluntary retirement savings was highest for those drawing their voluntary pensions before statutory pen-sions. This may have created an...