Browsing by study line "Allmänna studieinriktningen"
Now showing items 21-40 of 55
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(2020)In social sciences, as in health sciences, there is an increasing interest in exploring differences in treatment effects amongst subpopulations and even individuals. In many cases, researchers must rely on observational data where the assignment mechanism of the treatment is non-randomized. Nevertheless, by including a sufficient set of covariates in the used model, it is possible to draw a causal inference. However, some causal structures have proved to cause bias in the treatment effect estimates when particular pre-treated variables in them are conditioned. In existing literature there is no consensus as to how to treat these structures, especially in the heterogeneous treatment effect estimation case. The aim of this thesis is to explore how causal structures affect covariate selection in the heterogeneous treatment effect estimation context. The theoretical background of this subject is built on the potential outcomes framework and structural causal models. This thesis provides an overview of heterogeneous treatment effect estimation methods, including a more detailed view on the causal forest method. The second stage of the thesis is carried out by executing a simulation study where the causal forest method is applied with different causal structures. In each simulation, different sets of conditioned covariates are tested. The simulation study results prove almost consistent. In every simulation except one, a higher number of variables implicates improvement in performance. Surprisingly, this result is applicable even to the cases where structural causal models literature suggests not to condition all the variables. According to the results of the simulation study, a practical recommendation would be to include as many relevant pre-treated, non-instrumental variables in the model as possible. The results are in line with practical recommendations given in potential outcomes framework literature.
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(2020)The number of unskilled workers working in Finnish manufacturing has been declining in recent years. From 2010 to 2017 the total number of workers in Finnish manufacturing declined by roughly 40 000 workers and the number of unskilled workers, as defined in this paper, declined by roughly 30 000 workers during the same time-period. This paper examines the role that outward foreign direct investment has played in the decline of the employment of unskilled workers in Finnish manufacturing over the years 2010-2017 and whether foreign direct investment directed to certain countries has contributed to the decline more than investment directed to other countries. Theories on international fragmentation of production suggest that the most unskilled labour-intensive processes are shifted to countries more abundant in unskilled labour. To estimate the effects of foreign direct investment on the number of unskilled workers working in Finnish manufacturing a dataset containing the average annual wage of all workers in Finnish manufacturing, the value of output, the value of the stock of machinery and the number of employees in foreign affiliates is used. The dataset covers the years 2010-2017.Turnover in foreign affiliates and the value of imported intermediate goods are used as alternative measures for foreign direct investment in separate models. The regression model is a first differences model where the number of unskilled workers is the dependent variable and the other variables mentioned above are the independent variables. The first differences models do not yield any statistically significant results and neither do alternative specifications used in this paper, which are a second differences estimator and a lagged effects estimator where the all other variables are differenced twice and the variable describing foreign direct investment is differenced once. These results do not necessarily mean that foreign direct investment has played no role in the decline of the number of unskilled workers working in Finnish manufacturing but the effects are not significant on an aggregated industry level. This question should be studied more carefully using more specific industry-level data or even firm-level data.
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(2020)The turnover of heterogeneous firms has been shown to behave differently at business cycle frequencies. Traditionally it has been noted that the turnover of small firms is more procyclical. The evidence is however less unambiguous when it comes to more recent business cycle contractions, such as the financial crisis. Majority of the literature considers access to credit to be the driving force behind the differences in cyclicality. Due to asymmetrical information banks intermediating credit consider small firms to be riskier than large. During an economic downturn, safe investments are favored and thus the wedge in access to credit between large and small firms increases. The thesis consequently focuses on the impact of supply of credit on firms. More specifically, the study looks at the responses of firms of different size in Finland to unconventional monetary policy shocks by the European Central Bank (ECB). Unconventional monetary policy shocks are identified in several ways in the thesis. All approaches are based on a six-variate vector autoregressive (VAR) model. The euro wide variables are the gross domestic product (GDP), consumer prices, ECB’s balance sheet, financial stress measured by the Composite Indicator of Systemic Stress (CISS), the spread between the EONIA (Euro OverNight Index Average) and main refinancing operations (MRO) rates and the MRO rate. All variables are provided by either the ECB or Eurostat. The series were aggregated or interpolated to a monthly frequency and seasonally adjusted if needed. The turnover data for Finnish firms is from Statistics Finland. Sales inquiry data collected by Statistics Finland is used as the series for large firms. On the other hand, the series for small firms is based on value added tax data, which covers nearly the entire economy. The turnovers of large and small firms enter the baseline model one at a time. The thesis concentrates on a time period during which the unconventional measures have been in place, that is between January 2010 up until December 2018. In the thesis, the impact of unconventional monetary policy measures such as the targeted longer-term refinancing operations and the asset purchase programme is studied through the balance sheet of the ECB. Zero and sign restrictions are used to uncover the structural shocks. In the baseline identification, a shock to the central bank’s balance sheet is assumed to increase the size of the ECB’s balance sheet and decrease financial stress as well as the EONIA-MRO spread for two months. It is additionally assumed that the shock does not have affect GDP, prices and the MRO rate upon impact. The restrictions are implemented through a Bayesian rejection algorithm. The algorithm draws a variance-covariance decomposition from the posterior distribution of the model and checks whether is produces impulse responses that fulfill the restrictions. The results are represented as the median response of the accepted draws. The results indicate that a shock to the balance sheet of the ECB increases the turnovers of both small and large Finnish firms. The positive impact manifests in two stages; it peaks some three months after the shock for the first time and later again. The impact on small firms is at its highest within 12 months of the innovation. The response of the turnover of large firms is less pronounced directly after the shock but lasts for longer. In summary, the results suggest that the impact is stronger for small firms but more persistent for large. Therefore, the thesis concludes that unconventional monetary policy measures have not benefited small Finnish firms disproportionately.
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(2019)The topic of this thesis is to explore the impact of immigration on the task specialization of natives. According to the literature, immigration does not have a significant negative impact on the employment nor the wages of natives. A one possible reason for this can be imperfect substitutability which means that natives and immigrants with similar education are not perfect substitutes and thus, they do not compete for the same jobs. Natives may have a comparative advantage in interactive tasks and immigrants in manual tasks. An exact research question is to investigate if less educated natives locate to less manual and more interactive jobs as the shares of similarly educated foreign-born people rise. This is implemented by constructing variables which describe the manual and interactive task intensities of different occupation classes. Peri and Sparber (2009) and Amuedo-Dorantes and de la Rica (2011) have investigated similar questions and therefore, their studies are the main references of this thesis. The data of this study is provided by Ipums International and O*Net data from the US Department of Labor. The first of these two is census microdata from France and it includes eight samples between the years 1962 and 2011. The second dataset contains numerical values which describe the importance of different abilities of different occupations. The analysis is made by applying the method of ordinary least squares and the method of instrumental variables. The instrumental variable for the shares of foreign-born workers is formed by imputing the shares of immigrants from several source countries, based on the distribution of immigrant groups across regions in the year 1962. The results support the hypothesis rather well. A one percentage point increase in the foreign-born share of less educated labour force lowers the manual-to-interactive task ratio of natives by approximately two percentages on average. However, the results regarding to different demographic groups are varied. The most unexpected observation is that the share of female immigrants affects the task specialization of both male and female natives much more than share of male immigrants does. In addition, education, age, the industry of occupation, and the business cycle of an economy seem to have impact on the possibilities of natives to shift to less manual and more interactive tasks. The results suggest that inflows of less educated immigrants indeed push less educated natives towards less manual and more interactive jobs. Nonetheless, because the estimates of previous studies have been smaller, it is likely that the estimates of this thesis are biased upward and the real impact of immigration on the task specialization of natives is more moderate.
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(2019)Tutkielmassa tehdään katsaus taitovaatimuksen tutkimukseen ja työn taitovaatimuksissa tapahtuneisiin muutoksiin Suomessa 2000-luvulla. Katsauksen tarkoituksena on ymmärtää, miten työn taitovaatimukset ovat muuttuneet viime vuosikymmeninä teknologian kehityksen seurauksena ja miksi. Työn taitovaatimusten muutosta ja teknologian kehityksen roolia tässä muutoksessa on tärkeä ymmärtää, jotta muuttuvat taitovaatimukset voidaan parhaalla mahdollisella tavalla ottaa huomioon yhteiskunnan päätöksenteossa nyt ja tulevaisuudessa. Tarkastelen tutkielmassa kolmea eri työn taitovaatimusten muutosta kuvaavaa mallia. Nämä mallit ovat osaamista suosivan teknologian muutoksen malli, tehtäväpohjainen malli ja sosiaalisia taitoja korostava malli. Tutkielman rakenne on rakennettu tutkimuksen historian ympärille siten, että kussakin luvussa esitellään kronologisessa järjestyksessä kunakin ajanjaksona vallalla ollut malli työn taitovaatimusten muutoksesta ja sen taustatekijöistä. Teoreettisen osuuden lisäksi kussakin luvussa tarkastellaan taitovaatimusten muutosta myös empiiristen tulosten kautta. Ensimmäinen tutkielmassa esiteltävä malli on osaamista suosivan teknologian muutoksen malli. Mallissa teknologian muutoksen oletetaan olevan luonteeltaan osaamista suosivaa, mikä tarkoittaa, että se täydentää korkeataitoisten työntekijöiden työtä. Empiiriset havainnot näyttivät tukevan havaintoa, sillä koulutetun työvoiman kysynnän kasvu osui samaan aikaan teknologian nopean kehityksen kanssa. Mallin puutteena on, että se tarkastelee taitojen muutosta liian kapeasta näkökulmasta, eikä mallin avulla ole mahdollista tarkastella työllisyysvaikutuksia saman koulutustaustan omaavien välillä tai polarisaation ilmiötä. Osaamista suosivan teknologian muutoksen jälkeen vallalle nousi tehtäväpohjainen malli, jossa taitovaatimusten muutosta tarkastellaan työtehtävien kautta jaottelemalla työtehtävät rutiininomaisiin ja ei rutiininomaisiin tehtäviin ja fyysisiin ja analyyttisiin tai interaktiivisiin työtehtäviin. Tämän uuden jaottelun avulla huomattiin, että teknologian muutos näytti korvaavan etenkin rutiininomaisia työtehtäviä ja täydentävän analyyttisia ja ei rutiininomaisia työtehtäviä. Fyysisiin ja ei rutiininomaisiin työtehtäviin teknologian muutoksella ei näyttänyt juuri olevan vaikutusta. Teknologian nopea kehitys näyttää tuoreiden havaintojen valossa ajaneen myös tehtäväpohjaisen mallin ohi, sillä teknologian kykenee kasvavissa määrin automatisoimaan myös ei rutiininomaisia työtehtäviä. Tuoreimmassa tutkimuksessa onkin kasvavissa määrin korostettu sosiaalisten taitojen kasvavaa merkitystä työelämässä, sillä teknologia ei vielä tällä hetkellä kykene korvaamaan ihmistä monitahoisen sosiaalisen kanssakäymisen tilanteissa.
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(2021)Tutkielmassa tarkastellaan kulutuserojen toimivuutta taloudellisen eriarvoisuuden mittarina. Taloudellista eriarvoisuutta tarkastellaan länsimaissa ensisijaisesti tuloerojen pohjalta. Ei ole kuitenkaan konsensusta siitä, kuvaavatko tuloerot vai kulutuserot paremmin taloudellista eriarvoisuutta. Tutkielman pääkysymys on, kuinka hyvin kulutuserot toimivat taloudellisen eriarvoisuuden indikaattorina teorian ja käytännön tekijöiden näkökulmasta. Keskeisimpiä tavoitteita on muodostaa hyvä kokonaiskuva kulutuserotutkimuksesta ja selvittää kulutuserojen mittausmenetelmien vahvuudet, ongelmat ja haasteet. Lisäksi verrataan tulo- ja kulutuspohjaisten mittareiden kykyjä mitata taloudellista eriarvoisuutta ja tarkastellaan miten kulutuserot ovat kehittyneet suhteessa tuloeroihin. Tutkimusmenetelmänä käytetään kirjallisuuskatsausta, jossa syvennytään yhdysvaltalaisiin ja eurooppalaisiin kulutuseroja käsitteleviin artikkeleihin. Tutkielman alussa verrataan tulo- ja kulutuspohjaisten mittareiden kykyä mitata taloudellista eriarvoisuutta tarkastelemalla niiden heikkouksia ja vahvuuksia. Aihetta katsotaan sekä teorian että käytännöllisyyden näkökulmasta. Seuraavaksi tarkastellaan, miten kulutuseroja mitataan ja minkälaisia tuloksia tutkimuksissa on saatu. Ensin käsitellään perinteisiä kyselypohjaisia tutkimuksia ja tämän jälkeen vaihtoehtoisia datalähteitä ja mittausmenetelmiä hyödyntäviä tutkimuksia. Tarkastelun kohteena on erityisesti datan laatuun liittyvät tekijät. Tutkielmassa käsiteltyjen elinkaari- ja pysyvän tulotason hypoteesien mukaan kulutus on tuloja relevantimpi eriarvoisuuden tarkastelussa. Käytännöllisyyteen liittyvät tekijät ovat kuitenkin olleet teoriaa merkittävämmässä asemassa valittaessa näiden kahden väliltä. Kulutuspohjaisen eriarvoisuuden mittaamisen keskeisimpänä ongelmana on datan laatuun liittyvät tekijät. Huolta kulutusmenojen kyselytutkimuksien datan laadusta on herättänyt suuri ero kyselytutkimuksien ja kansantalouden tilinpidon perusteella laskettujen kokonaismenojen välillä. Datan laatua heikentävät käsiteltyjen artikkelien mukaan kulutusmenojen kyselytutkimuksien pienet otoskoot, tuloja epäyhtenäisemmät kulutuksen määritelmät tietoaineistoissa, kulutuksen ja menojen eroavuus, raportoinnin haasteellisuudesta sekä unohtamisesta johtuva tahaton yli- ja aliraportointi sekä erityisesti rikkaimpien kotitalouksien muita ryhmiä yleisempi aliraportointi. Tutkielmassa käsitellyt perinteiset kyselypohjaiset tutkimukset ja vaihtoehtoisia menetelmiä hyödyntävät tutkimukset antavat kulutuserojen kehityksestä hyvin erilaiset kuvat. Perinteisten kyselypohjaisten tutkimusten mukaan kulutuserojen kasvu on ollut huomattavasti tuloeroja maltillisempaa ja välillä niiden kehitys on jopa mennyt vastakkaisiin suuntiin. Vaihtoehtoisia menetelmiä hyödyntävien tutkimuksien mukaan kulutuserot ovat kasvaneet aiempaa luultua enemmän ja osan mukaan kulutuserojen kehitys on seurannut hyvinkin läheisesti tuloerojen kehitystä. Monia vaihtoehtoisia menetelmiä hyödyntäviä tutkimuksia on kuitenkin kritisoitu niiden kyvyttömyydestä korjata kyselytutkimuksiin liittyviä mittausvirheitä, mikä on ollut niiden lähtökohtainen tavoite. Kulutuksen ensisijaista käyttöä taloudellisen eriarvoisuuden mittaamisessa puoltaa erityisesti elinkaari- ja pysyvän tulotason hypoteesi. Tarkasteltujen artikkeleiden perusteella ongelmaksi muodostuu etenkin datan laatu, jota tulisi parantaa kasvattamalla otoskokoa ja kehittämällä itse kyselytutkimusta tarkemmaksi. Toinen vaihtoehto on kehittää rekisteripohjaisia menetelmiä, joissa kulutus lasketaan tulojen ja säästöjen perusteella käyttäen valtion eri rekisteri ja tietokantoja. Tällöin kulutuserojen mittaus olisi täysin riippumaton kyselytutkimuksista ja niihin liittyvistä ongelmista.
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(2020)As of the 1980s, global poverty has witnessed a serious reduction. In numerous occasions, the reduction in poverty has been connected to an agrarian reform. A land reform is a type of agrarian reform which involves redistribution of land or changes in the legal framework for land administration. A large body of empirical studies have found that land reforms have proven to be a prominent tool in alleviating poverty. In this thesis, I examine the economic outcomes of the Finnish land reform of 1918. The reform enabled tenant farmers, which covered around half of the rural population, to buy their farms with a fraction of the market price. As my identification strategy, I use instrumental variables analysis, exploiting arguably exogenous variation in the regional distribution of tenants. I employ municipal level data from decennial agricultural censuses from 1910 to 1941. I find that the land reform increased capital intensity by around 23% in the two subsequent decades, which correspond to over third of the overall increase. Using a plain stochastic output model, I evaluate that this would signify a 14% increase in output at the farm level. Furthermore, I compute that the reform accelerated the structural transformation of agriculture toward dairy farming by 10 years. These effects are robust to controlling various municipal characteristics, such as natural conditions, population density and wealth. To confirm that the analysis does not simply capture dissimilarities in pre-reform development, I report baseline differences in municipal characteristics by regressing outcomes on the proportion of tenants with a cross-section for 1910. These findings question the traditional view that the Finnish land reform regressed progress in agriculture. They are in line with the evidence on economic benefits of land reforms. As a novel contribution, this thesis is able to show that the effects are persistent. The exact mechanism driving the results could not be distinguished. I suspect, that the causal channel operated either through the farmers' improved incentives or an access to collateralizable assets, both dependent on property rights.
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(2021)This thesis studies lifetime earnings inequality in Finland using a unique dataset based on administrative data from the Finnish Centre for Pensions. I analyse intragenerational lifetime earnings, their distribution and mobility of individual’s in the earnings distribution over the life cycle to determine whether Finnish cohorts are becoming more or less equal based on their lifetime earnings. In addition, I examine the association between current and lifetime earnings over the life cycle. The analysis includes nine cohorts born every five years between 1940 and 1980. Altogether 4 140 individuals are included in the analysis (n=4 140). However, since the cohort-specific sample sizes are extremely small against sample sizes used in present-day research, results have to be interpreted with caution. Results concerning the evolution of intragenerational lifetime earnings inequality differ between men and women. Results for men indicate that no clear increasing or decreasing trend can be declared over the evolution of intragenerational lifetime earnings inequality. However, the Gini coefficients of lifetime earnings defined up-to age-39 suggest that the 1970 and 1975 cohorts are experiencing higher levels of inequality than the older cohorts born in the 1950s. Findings for women, in contrast, imply a decreasing trend in the evolution of intragenerational lifetime earnings inequality between successive cohorts. Based on the results, younger female cohorts are experiencing less intragenerational lifetime earnings inequality than older cohorts. Findings concerning the association between current and lifetime earnings demonstrate that annual and lifetime earnings are highly correlated between ages 40 and 50 for men. Likewise, annual and lifetime earnings are highly correlated between ages 45 and 55 for women. Annual earnings can be considered a good proxy for lifetime earnings between these age brackets for men and women respectively.
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(2021)Urbanization is one of the megatrends of our time. Urbanization means that the cities have become more substantial and more critical economic centers. City population had an increasing trend both in Stockholm and Helsinki for the years 1990–2019. Migration has been one of the factors driving this urbanization process. Increased attractivity of the urban housing leads to an increased demand for urban housing which affects the urban housing market dynamics. Stockholm and Helsinki, as metropolitan cities, had an increasing trend to the real house prices of the old apartments for most of the years 2005–2019. The primary purpose of the study is to test whether excess migration explains the real house prices. Moreover, the role of the real income per person, the real interest rate, the new apartment construction, and the unemployment rate for the house prices is examined. House prices are linked to the household wealth and the private consumption. Besides, the house prices affect people’s ability to move into new areas for receiving a new job. In the empirical part, the house price determinants for the old apartments are examined by adapting a two-stage least squares model for the panel data from Stockholm and Helsinki for the years 2005–2019. Overall, the observation period comprises a timeframe of almost the two first decades of the millennium era starting from the aftermath of the Tech bubble. Furthermore, this period includes the global financial crisis in the year 2008 and European debt crisis that began in the year 2010. The adapted data of the house prices, excess migration, real income per person, the new completed apartments, and the unemployment rate are on the municipality level data. The real interest rates are computed from the national level data from Sweden and Finland, except for the 6 months EURIBOR that is data from the euro area level. The data is provided by Valueguard, Statistics Sweden, Statistics Finland, OECD, and the City of Helsinki. The empirical results strongly indicate that the real interest rate and the real income per person affect the house prices of the old apartments in Stockholm and Helsinki in the years 2005–2019. However, the empirical results do not give a statistically significant estimate to the role of the excess migration to explaining the house prices. Furthermore, the estimates for the new completed apartments and the unemployment rate are statistically insignificant that hampers the analysis of for these determinants as explanatory variables for the house prices. The empirical findings about the role of the real income affecting the house prices are in line with the previous findings from the Swedish and Finnish housing markets. Moreover, the previous findings from the Finnish housing markets support the finding of the real interest rate affecting the house prices. The empirical findings underline the importance of the availability of the macroprudential tools for preventing a possible overheating of the housing markets at the low interest rate environment. Furthermore, the findings highlight the need to closely monitor the household indebtedness and the share of the household income that is used to the loan instalments. Furthermore, the results lead to ask, whether the housing markets are capable of supporting migration to these cities from the areas where the real income level is smaller compared with Stockholm and Helsinki for taking a job.
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(2019)Prices of different products are followed by statistical offices in order to produce price indices. The quality of products is constantly changing due to creative destruction. When a product leaves market, its price is computed with a method called imputation. Recent studies in United States and France have found that use of imputation may lead to upward bias in inflation. Since price indices are used as deflators when calculating economic growth, such a bias would mean that some of the growth is missed. The aim of this thesis is to study whether such a bias exists in Finland and how large it is. In addition, the channels of innovation induced growth are studied in order to determine from where the potentially missed growth originates. Creative destruction has been incorporated into economic growth models in the early 1990s. In its centre, are firms at the microlevel that innovate and create new products and improve existing ones. It has been shown that it is a key element when economic growth is concerned. New products and improving quality of old varieties is, however, widely recognised problem for price indices. Sources of bias for price statistics has been studied a lot and the changing quality of products is one of the greatest of them. This thesis contributes to this field by recognising a new possible source of bias and its magnitude in Finnish economy. The model used in this thesis is from 2017 paper by Aghion, Bergeaud, Boppart, Klenow and Li. The model is a new keynesian DSGE model with exogenous innovation and it provides an accounting framework which enables the quantification of missing growth. The missing growth is estimated using a so-called market share approach, where market shares of incumbent and entrant producers are exploited to quantify the share of growth that is missed yearly. Another method, namely indirect inference, relies on simulation of the economic growth model. It infers the arrival rates and step sizes of different types of innovations: incumbent of innovation, creative destruction and new product varieties. The simulation also enables for finding the contributions of those innovation types for the economic growth. The contributions provide information on from which type of innovation the majority of growth comes. Both methods use data provided by Statistics Finland. They use micro level data on private enterprises in Finland during the years 1989 – 2016. The market share approach requires establishment level data and information on the revenue and employment. The indirect inference method uses the same data aggregated on firm level for the years 1993 – 2013. In addition, the simulation requires total factor productivity growth rate for the given years. The results suggest that 0.489 percentage points of growth has been missed yearly in Finland during the years 1989 – 2016 when calculated with revenue data. The missed growth was estimated to be 0.532 percentage points per year with employment data. The results are comparable in magnitude with the results from the United States and France. The magnitude has remained stable over the years. The indirect inference method suggests that most of the growth comes from incumbent own innovation: 59.3% in 1993 – 2003 and 57.8% in 2003 – 2013. The rest is due to creative destruction and new product varieties either by incumbents or entrants. If 0.5 percentage points of growth is missed every year, it would have had significant effects on the economy. For example, many social benefits are tied to price indices and over estimation of them would mean that the benefits have not risen as much as they should have. Given the systematic nature of the bias, the central bank should consider increasing its inflation target. The statistical offices that produce the price statistics may be able to lower the bias if they manage to keep up to date with incumbent own innovations, since the majority of growth is originating from it. Also chain linked index helps lowering the bias by updating the sample and weights on a yearly basis. Additional research is needed in order to find solutions to overcome the bias caused by creative destruction and imputation of missing prices.
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(2020)Forskningens syfte är att förstå och kvantifiera energifattigdom I Finland inom ramen för statsvetenskap och välfärdspolitik. Energifattigdom är ett fenomen med flera potentiella faktorer som orsakar det. På grund av detta behövs ett brett spektrum av policy och politik för att lindra det. Energifattigdom är ett fenomen som nyligen fått mera fokus inom akademisk forskning i europeisk aspekt. Två metoder användes för att undersöka energifattigdom i Finland. Först genomfördes en kvalitativ sekundär analys for att känna igen och kategorisera resultat för orsaker och korrelationer för energifattigdom inom tidigare forskning. Baserat på tidigare hittade korrelationer gjordes antaganden om vad som orsakar eller riskerar att orsaka energifattigdom. Detta behövdes på grund av att energifattigdom inte mäts i Finland. Efter kvalitativa sekundär analysen gjordes en kvantitativ analys för att undersöka den regionala signifikansen av varje faktor för energifattigdom. Den kvalitativa sekundär analysen av tidigare forskning lyckades och gav korrelationer och orsak till energifattigdom. Den regionala betydelsen av varje faktor kvantifierades framgångsrikt och antaganden kunde göras för fenomenet i Finland. Till slut diskuteras de politiska- och policyansträngningar som direkt eller indirekt redan tagits i Finland för att lindra energifattigdom.
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(2021)In recent years international tax issues have attracted wide global attention. International tax rules that were designed more than a century ago have weaknesses that create opportunities for base erosion and profit shifting. Multinational corporations use various profit shifting channels, such as transfer pricing and debt shifting, to minimize their corporate taxes. Also, increased digitalisation of the economy poses challenges for the current rules. The primary objectives of the thesis are to analyse how countries choose their corporate income tax rates when tax bases are mobile, what is the extent of tax avoidance, and what policy proposals are suggested to fight tax avoidance. The thesis is an overview to the profit shifting and tax competition literature. The theoretical framework consists of two workhorse models of tax competition, The Zodrow, Mieszkowski and Wilson model and the Kanbur-Keen model. The theory part is accompanied by two studies: one that is an overview to empirical literature on profit shifting and another one exploiting new macroeconomic data and analysing how tax differentials affect the profit shifting between countries. Regarding the policy proposals, the thesis focuses on the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting project, but four alternative schemes are also discussed. Fundamental reform is needed for current tax rules. Functioning international tax system requires even more coordination between countries than has been achieved, as uncoordinated and unilateral approaches cause adverse spillovers and distortion. The interests and capacities of developing countries and low-income countries need to be considered in decision-making as they are more reliant on the corporate income tax revenues compared to advanced countries.
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(2021)Kansaneläkelaitoksen (Kelan) järjestämän ammatillisen kuntoutuksen tavoitteena on auttaa kuntoutusasiakasta sopivan ammattialan valinnassa, työllistymisessä sekä työelämässä pysymisessä tai sinne palaamisessa. Tässä tutkielmassa pyritään selvittämään ammatillisen kuntoutuksen vaikutusta 16-29-vuotiaan kuntoutusasiakkaan myöhempään elämäntilanteeseen tarkastelemalla työkyvyttömyyteen tai työttömyyteen liittyvien sosiaaliturvaetuuksien saamista kolme vuotta kuntoutuksen hakemisen jälkeen. Ammatilliseen kuntoutukseen päätymistä ei voida pitää satunnaisena, vaan kuntoutuspalveluihin ohjataan tavallisesti yksilöt, jotka ovat terveydellisistä syistä kuntoutuksen tarpeessa, mutta kykeneviä hyötymään tarjotusta kuntoutuspalvelusta. Sekoittavat tekijät vaikuttavat sekä kuntoutukseen pääsemiseen että myöhempään sosiaaliturvan saamiseen, mikä tekee myönteisestä kuntoutuspäätöksestä sosiaaliturvan saamiselle niin sanotun endogeenisen selittäjän. Tutkielman aineistona toimivat Kelan etuusrekistereistä poimitut tiedot 16-29-vuotiaiden henkilöiden vuonna 2016 tekemistä ammatillisen kuntoutuksen hakemuksista, joihin on yhdistetty tiedot henkilöille vuonna 2019 maksetuista Kelan sosiaaliturvaetuuksista. Tutkielman menetelmänä endogeenisen selittäjän luoman estimointiharhan ratkaisemiseksi käytetään instumenttimuuttujaestimointia. Instrumenttina myönteisen kuntoutuspäätöksen saamiselle käytetään tietoa siitä, millä osuudella henkilön kuntoutushakemuksen käsitellyt kuntoutusratkaisija on tehnyt muille käsittelemilleen hakemuksille myönteisiä päätöksiä, eli niin sanottua ratkaisijan ''ankaruutta''. Myönteisen kuntoutuspäätöksen kausaalivaikutusta maksettuihin sosiaaliturvaetuuksiin estimoidaan kaksivaiheisella pienimmän neliösumman (2VPNS) estimoinnilla kuljettaen rinnalla myös perinteistä pienimmän neliösumman estimointia. Tutkielman tulokset käsittelevät ratkaisijan ankaruuden kelpoisuutta myönteisen kuntoutuspäätöksen saamisen instrumentiksi, sekä myönteisen kuntoutuspäätöksen vaikutusta henkilön vuonna 2019 saamaan sosiaaliturvaan. Saatujen tulosten perusteella kuntoutusratkaisijan ankaruus täyttää instrumentin eksogeenisyydelle, relevanssille ja monotonisuudelle asetetut oletukset. 2VPNS-estimoinnin tulokset näyttävät, että myönteisellä kuntoutuspäätöksellä on toimeentuloa turvaavien sosiaaliturvaetuuksien saamista kasvattava vaikutus. Ratkaisijan ankaruutta validina instrumenttina käyttävä 2VPNS-estimointi ilmentää myönteisen kuntoutuspäätöksen kausaalivaikutusta eri sosiaaliturvaetuuksien saamiseen. Saatuja tuloksia tulkittaessa otetaan kuitenkin huomioon estimaattien epätarkkuus ja niiden paikallinen luonne. 2VPNS-estimointi ilmentää myönteisen kuntoutuspäätöksen kausaalivaikutusta rajatapauksilla, joiden kuntoutukseen pääsy on riippunut kuntoutusratkaisijan ankaruudesta.
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(2018)Logistic regression has been the most common credit scoring model for several decades. The purpose of a credit scoring model is to distinguish good applicants from bad applicants so that the consumer credit can be lent to a person who is likely to repay it. In Finland, households' indebtedness has increased while wage development has stagnated. In addition to mortgage, indebtedness has increased because of the rising number of consumer credit loans. Consumer credit is usually unsecured loans, which are provided by several financial institutions quickly and flexible. Consumer credit is considered to be one of the major causes of default. Systematic risks are still being avoided for now, but the increased number of customers and the fierce competition in the sector can bring new risks that should be anticipated, as insolvent customers are making losses to financial institutions. Developing and deploying new credit scoring models is one of the best ways to hedge against default risks. The prediction accuracy and performance of tree-based credit scoring models have been studied. In many cases, tree-based algorithms have performed better than traditional statistical models such as the earlier mentioned logistic regression. In this master's thesis classical logistic regression is compared to these tree-based algorithms. The most well-known tree-based algorithms have been chosen, which are random forest, discrete Adaboost, real Adaboost, LogitBoost, Gentle Adaboost and Gradient Boosting. These methods use the tree algorithm as the base learner but differ in their iterative processes. The data that has been gathered from a Finnish medium-sized financial company, consists of customer's personal information and their payment behavior of sales finance. It is important to compare how different models predict insolvency in the light of different test statistics. In this thesis, the best-performing models are logistic regression and the Gradient Boosting algorithm. From my research's point of view, it is recommended to develop a credit scoring model based on the Gradient Boosting algorithm. This algorithm discloses different explanatory variables compared to logistic regression. These variables can explain better the causes of insolvency. The results are robust and plausible, because the different tests give similar conclusions.
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Online job vacancy ads as data for studying skill demand : Observations and methodological insights (2020)Researchers debate the skills required in future jobs and which skills are of particular consequence for the mobility of labor. In researching this topic, many turn to online job vacancy advertisements as a source of abundant, naturally-occurring data. Despite the great interest, economics research has often overlooked the nature of job vacancy ads as a context-bound genre of text and the implications that has on the analysis. This thesis has two aims. First, the thesis critically considers the use of online job vacancy advertisements as data for research on labor markets, seeking to advance the methodological rigor in studies using this type of data, particularly that from a Finnish context. Second, to consider, on the basis of a two-stage mixed methods analysis of online job vacancy advertisements published on a Finnish online job board in 2017-2019, the type of skills that Finnish employers call for in successful applicants in professional private sector jobs. This thesis also elaborates on the language aspect of online job vacancy advertising in Finland. The descriptive statistics of the random sample would seem to confirm the repetitive nature of job vacancy ads and trends in employee ideals which have been discussed in the literature. For example, it would seem that there is a greater focus on interpersonal skills compared to intrapersonal skills. The increasingly globalized nature of the Finnish labor market and workplace is also reflected in the data. Although job advertisements are a tempting source of data, in their current free-form state, some doubt can be cast on their relevance as a source of meaningful data on skills. Historical, geographical and other contexts must be carefully considered in analysis in order to avoid overstating the implications of findings and to better situate and analyze the observed tendencies and trends found in the data. Europe-wide efforts to improve job matching may as a by-product, produce a more robust source of data, should it be readily adopted.
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(2021)The aim of this research is to examine the impact of population aging on income inequality in Finland over the time period from 1991 to 2016. The research question is relevant since population aging is a part of reality around the world because of the declining trend in the rate of birth in addition to greater longevity. These vast demographic and socio-economic changes stress the well-being of nations. This study offers some important insights into the discussion of income inequality in Finland as no similar study has been conducted before. Understanding the link between aging and income inequality will help us to direct our attention to where policy decisions might need to be directed if inequality is seen to grow adversely. This study will be carried out by both a decomposition analysis and a shift-share analysis. These methods are commonly used for examining the contribution to inequality of particular characteristics, as they manage to gauge the relative importance of different determinants in overall inequality. These methods will be applied to the traditional inequality measures belonging to the family of generalized entropy (GE), such as the mean logarithmic deviation, Theil’s index, and the half-squared coefficient of variation. The use of multiple different measures in inequality research is recommendable, for they provide information about the distribution from different perspectives, and clarify where in the distribution the change has taken place. In order to study the impact of population aging on income inequality, the population was partitioned into five different age cohorts; 0-39, 40-60, 61-65, 66-70, and 71+, and one- or two-person households were examined in this research. Data for this study was received from the Luxembourg Income Study Database (LIS). Income inequality was investigated by disposable household income, which was equivalized by the square root scale. The decomposition analysis allows us to answer the question of how much of total inequality is attributable to variability in the first subgroup, in the second, etc., and how much to between subgroups. To complement the results from the decomposition analysis, by the shift-share analysis we are able to simulate such a Finland which would have not aged at all since both 1991 and 2000 while other factors remain unchanged at the 2016 level. The results of the decomposition analysis led us to a clear conclusion that variations within groups are much more significant in the formation of total inequality than the variations between groups. In the light of the shift-share analysis, interestingly, the aged Finland is less unequal than the Finland, which would use the population shares of 1991 and 2000. Hence such a study of aging, which only examines changes in population shares ceteris paribus, shows that aging has slowed down the rise of inequality in Finland. This is because the age structure of the years 1991 and 2000 put the most weight on people in most unequal, or second most unequal age group in proportion to other age groups than the population distribution of the year 2016.
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(2019)Forests have a significant role in preventing climate change. Forests work as a carbon sink and produce also other non-timber amenity values alongside commercial timber. Taking these non-timber amenity values into account while calculating the value of forest will have an effect on choosing an optimal forest management regimes. The Faustmann formula and its extensions are widely explored among forest economists. Most notable extensions of the Faustmann formula include the Hartman extension of non-timber amenity values and the inclusion of carbon storage. Both the Hartman model and the Faustmann model with carbon storage, have previously only been analytically studied separately. In this study, the original Faustmann model, Faustmann model with carbon storage, Hartman model and Hartman model with carbon storage is covered. The entirely novel optimal conditions for the unique and finite rotations for these models are presented. In addition, based on empirically estimated ecological growth models, the numerical examples for all of the economic models included in this study is presented. According to the results, extending the classical Faustmann model to cover carbon storage or (and) non-timber amenity values, lengthens the optimal rotation and increases the bare lad value. Additionally, weaker growing conditions always increase the optimal rotation. Moreover, increasing the interest rate may increase or decrease the rotation, depending on the carbon price.
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(2018)Tässä tutkielmassa tutkitaan empiirisesti euroalueen optimaalisuutta valuutta-alueena aikaisempaan teoreettiseen kirjallisuuteen nojaten. Tarkastelussa keskitytään kriteeriin, jonka mukaan yhteisvaluutan muodostavien maiden tulisi olla suhdannesykleiltään yhteneväiset. Mundell (1961) määritteli useita kriteereitä optimaalista valuutta-aluetta muodostettaessa ja tässä tutkielmassa on valittu edellä mainittu yksi kriteeri tarkasteltavaksi. Tutkimuksessa hyödynnetään logaritmoitua asukaskohtaista bruttokansantuotetta mittaavaa neljännesvuosittaista aineistoa ja se on jaettu kahteen osaan. Ensimmäinen ajanjakso kattaa ajan ennen euroa (1960:1-1998:4) ja toinen ajanjakso kattaa ajan euron luomisen jälkeen (1999:1-2016:4). Aineisto kattaa euro12-maat, joihin kuuluvat Itävalta, Belgia, Suomi, Saksa, Ranska, Kreikka, Irlanti, Italia, Luxemburg, Alankomaat, Portugali ja Espanja. Tutkimusmenetelminä hyödynnetään yhteisintegroituvuusanalyysia. Maat on analysoitu pareittain niin, että Saksa on aina toisena. Saksa on valittu kontrollimaaksi, koska se on ollut yksi nopeimmin kasvavista euromaista euron luomisen jälkeen. Tutkimuksen perusteella Saksan ja muiden euromaiden väliltä ei löytynyt merkittävässä määrin yhteisintegroituvuussuhteita. Tämä indikoi, että tutkimuksessa käytettävien euromaiden suhdannesyklit eivät ole yhteneväiset Saksan kanssa, eikä euron luominen ole luonut konvergenssia euroalueelle. Keskeisimpänä johtopäätöksenä voidaan todeta, että tämän tutkimuksen perusteella euroalueen maat eivät ole suhdannesykleiltään yhteneväisiä, eikä euroalue siten täytä ainakaan toistaiseksi kaikkia optimaalisen valuutta-alueen kriteereitä. Tässä tiivistelmässä käytetyt lähteet: Mundell, R.A. 1961. A theory of optimum currency areas, American Economic Review, 657-665.
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(2021)Perustulokokeiluita on järjestetty eri puolilla maailmaa sekä kehittyneissä maissa että kehitysmaissa. Tutkielman tavoitteena on selvittää, miten järjestetyt perustulokokeilut ovat toimineet ja mitä havaintoja niistä on tehty. Tärkeimpiä tutkimuskohteita toteutetuissa kokeiluissa ovat olleet miten esimerkiksi työn tarjonta, terveydentila, kouluttautuminen, kuluttaminen, säästäminen ja byrokratiakokemukset ovat muuttuneet perustulosta johtuen. Olennaista on tiedostaa, että kehitysmaat ja kehittyneet maat eroavat keskenään huomattavasti sosiaalipoliittisen ympäristön, instituutioiden sekä sosiaaliturvan välillä, joten suora vertailu ja johtopäätösten tekeminen on haastavaa. Kehittyneissä maissa eräs päätavoitteista on parantaa työn tarjonnan kannustimia sekä yksinkertaistaa sosiaaliturvajärjestelmää ja purkaa kannustinloukkuja. Kehitysmaissa puolestaan vähentää köyhyydestä johtuvia ongelmia sekä parantaa elinolosuhteita. Lisäksi tulee ottaa huomioon, että kokeiluita on järjestetty eri vuosikymmenien aikana, joten myös tällä on ollut vaikutusta havaittuihin tuloksiin. Perustulosta keskusteltaessa on myös tärkeää määritellä perustulon käsite, koska se on moniulotteinen ja voi tarkoittaa useaa eri asiaa. Perustulo puhtaana mallina on pitkälti teoreettinen, joten realistisempana pidetään osittaista perustuloa. Keskeisimpiä teorioita, joita tutkielmassa on käytetty, liittyvät työn tarjonnan kannustimien sekä talousteorian ja perustulon väliseen yhteyteen. Lisäksi on tarkasteltu substituutio- ja tulovaikutusta, joka kuvaa henkilön valintatilannetta tarjotun työn määrän ja palkkatason muutoksen välillä. Järjestetyt kokeilut ovat olleet malliltaan kenttäkokeita, joilla saattaa olla erilaisia heijastusvaikutuksia ja myös näihin liittyvä teoria on olennaisessa osassa. Tutkielma on rakenteeltaan kirjallisuuskatsaus, joten tutkielmassa käytetty menetelmä on aiheen käsittelyä hyödyntäen tieteellistä kirjallisuutta. Tärkeimpiä käytettyjä lähteitä tutkielmassa on Kankaan ym. (2016; 2019; 2020) raportit perustuloon liittyvistä yleisistä tekijöistä ja kokeiluista sekä teorian osalta Burtlessin (1986) ja Moffittin (2003) julkaisut. Järjestettyjen kokeiluiden pohjalta saaduista tuloksista on havaittavissa, että kehitysmaiden osalta ne ovat olleet yleisesti ottaen positiivisia tarkastelun kohteena olevissa muuttujissa. Kehitysmaiden kohdalla havaintoihin täytyy kuitenkin suhtautua varauksella, sillä olemattomasta sosiaaliturvasta johtuen on odotettavaa saada aikaan positiivisia vaikutuksia. On kuitenkin kyseenalaista, johtuvatko myönteiset tulokset itse perustulon vaikutuksesta vai ainoastaan maksetusta tulonsiirrosta. Kehittyneiden maiden kohdalla saaduista tuloksista on huomattavissa, että työn tarjonta ei lisääntynyt, se pysyi joko muuttumattomana tai vähentyi. Henkilöiden terveydentilaan ja hyvinvointiin perustulo näyttää vaikuttaneen positiivisesti, kuten myös eräisiin muihin muuttujiin. Perustuloon liittyvä keskustelu on lisääntynyt viime aikoina ja uusia kokeiluita järjestetään eri maissa. Järjestetyt kokeilut ovat olennaisia, koska henkilöiden valinnat saattavat todellisuudessa poiketa mallien ja teorioiden antamista ennusteista ja tästä johtuen perustulokokeilut kenttäkoe muodossa ovat ainoa tapa selvittää siitä johtuvia vaikutuksia. Perustuloon ja sen mahdolliseen käyttöönottoon liittyy vielä paljon kysymyksiä, mutta järjestettyjen kokeiluiden avulla on saatu paljon hyödyllistä tietoa tulevaisuutta ajatellen.
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(2020)The purpose of this thesis is to gain insight into the effects of different transaction and price setting methods and network structures in an intermediation network setting on profit allocation between their agents. The paper will be formulated as a literature review, and while every discussed intermediation model is not covered in detail, the goal is still to provide a clear outline on the topic. The focus is mostly in network models with exogenously determined connections between agents that restrict the trade, although search models, where the trade is restricted by randomizing the encounters between agents, are also discussed. The presented models are divided into three categories based on the restrictions placed on their intermediaries. First, we will look at models where intermediaries are not allowed to trade with each other. Next are models where intermediaries are allowed to trade with each other, causing intermediation chains to form. Lastly, we look at models where intermediaries are not exogenously separated from buyers. We will see that the results of intermediation network models are very sensitive to changes in the models' premises. Two largest contributors to the profit distribution between the agents in the models are the way the bargaining game between trading partners is modelled and how connections between agents in the model are restricted, which is directly tied to the restrictions on the trading partners of the intermediaries. The former on the other hand splits the models roughly into two categories, one utilizing a predetermined surplus split between the trade partners and the other using a strategic bargaining game. A pre-determined surplus split, depending on how even it is, usually favours agents further along the chain. The results of having a strategic bargaining game are largely dependent on positions of the agents in the network, where agents who can exploit competition between other agents can usually extract higher profits. In some models, the ability of intermediaries to make a positive profit is also tied to their necessity for the efficiency of the trade.
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