Since the Finnish unemployment rate has rocketed to a very high level in the beginning of the 1990?s it is worth to study to what extent the unemployment rate prevailing today is due to cyclical or to structural reasons. In this paper we try to estimate two different indicators that represent...

In Finland the older unemployed can collect unemployment insurance (UI) benefits until retirement, while the entitlement period for younger groups is two years. In 1997 the eligibility age of persons benefiting from extended benefits was raised from 53 to 55. This paper takes advantage of this...

This paper examines the Granger causality between total expenditures, own source revenues, grants received from the State and long-term loans for 12 subgroups of Finnish municipalities. Two panel data sets that cover the years 1985-1992 and 1993-1999 are used in order to compare the effect of...

This paper presents the Finnish system of EMU buffer funds. The idea of the buffer funds is to finance temporary reductions of payroll taxes in a case of asymmetric shock facing the economy. It is well-known that by adjusting payroll taxes it is possible to change real exchange rate, provided...

This survey presents findings from recent empirical studies on economic impacts of immigration with particular emphasis on European and Nordic countries. The survey consists of three parts. First, we look at the extent of immigration as an economic phenomenon in various host countries. The...

An approach to analyse and quantify the impact of lifestyle factors on current and future energy demand is developed. Thereby not only directly environmentally relevant consumer activities such as car use or heating have been analysed, but also expenditure patterns which induce environmental...

This report reviews the Finnish science, technology and innovation (STI) policies. The structure and actors of national innovation system (NIS) are described shortly as well as the functioning of education system. The performance of the Finnish STI policies is evaluated by referring to...

The report studies the distribution of income, expenditure, direct taxes and public transfers with respect to the age of household?s head. The data tonsist of five household budget surveys from the period 1971-1990 collected by Statistics Finland. The age- and cohort profiles of the variables...

Previous empirical studies have found a positive relationship between the size of legislature and the size of government. Those studies, however, do not adequately address the concerns of endogeneity. In contrast, this paper uses variation in legislature size induced by statutory council size...