Browsing by study line "Yleinen opintosuunta"

Eläkejärjestelmä on merkittävä osa sosiaaliturvaa ja väestön ikääntyessä sen rooli on kasvanut entisestään. Vuonna 2005 voimaan tullut eläkeuudistus sisälsi lain, jonka nojalla ammattiin valmistavan tutkinnon ajalta on voinut karttua etuutta, joka maksetaan työeläkkeen yhteydessä. Tämä opiskeluajalta karttuva eläke on viime vuosina noussut keskusteluun yhtenä mahdollisista leikkauskohteista tulevissa eläkeuudistuksissa. Aiheesta on saatavilla melko niukasti tutkimustietoa, johon tämä tutkielma pyrkii vastaamaan. Tutkielmassa tarkastellaan, mikä on tämän etuuden merkitys eläketurvan kannalta. Tutkielman aineisto perustuu Eläketurvakeskuksen tutkimusaineistoon Suomessa työeläkevakuutetuista henkilöistä. Aineiston perusteella tarkastellaan vuoden 2005 jälkeen eläkkeeseen oikeuttavan tutkinnon suorittaneiden ominaisuuksia ja lukumääriä. Lisäksi tutkitaan, miten tutkinnon suorittamisen ajalta karttuva etuus vaikuttaa eläketurvaan. Tähän käytetään jo eläkkeellä olevan ikäkohortin työ- ja kokonaiseläkkeitä, sekä suhteellisia ja absoluuttisia tuloeroja eläkkeissä ja tutkitaan sitä, mikä vaikutus näihin on, kun lisätään teoreettisesti arvioitu tutkinnon suorittamisesta karttunut eläke. Samankaltainen tarkastelu tehdään myös kahdelle nuoremmalle ikäkohortille, jotka eivät vielä ole siirtyneet eläkkeelle. Näiden kohdalla tarkastelun kohteena on eläkkeiden sijasta kohortin työeläkekarttumat. Tutkimuksen tuloksien perusteella odotettavissa on, että tutkinnon suorittamisesta karttuvan etuuden vaikutukset eläkejärjestelmään tulevat näkymään kunnolla vasta vuosikymmenten päästä, kun ansaitut etuudet tulevat täydellä laajuudellaan järjestelmän maksettavaksi. Vaikutukset eläketurvaan vaihtelevat eläkkeen määrän ja tutkinnon tason mukaan jonkin verran. Suurimman suhteellisen hyödyn opiskeluajalta karttuvasta eläkkeestä näyttäisivät saavan vanhemman kohortin eläkkeiden tarkastelun perusteella ammattikorkeakoulututkinnon suorittaneet ja nuorempien kohorttien työeläkekarttumien tarkastelun perusteella alemman korkeakoulututkinnon suorittaneet. Analyysin tulokset viittaavan siihen, että suhteelliset tuloerot eläkeläisten kesken kapenevat hieman tutkinnon suorittamisesta karttuvan etuuden vaikutuksesta. Tarkastelussa huomataan kuitenkin, että Kansaneläkelaitoksen maksamat kansaneläke ja takuueläke tasoittavat jo valmiiksi eläkejakaumaa, jolloin tutkinnon suorittamisesta karttuvan eläkkeen suhteellinen vaikutus on pienempi.

Maisterintutkielmassani tarkastelen suomalaisten pienten ja keskisuurten yritysten (pk-yritysten) ilmastotoimia ja niiden taustalla olevia motiiveja. Tutkimus hyödyntää teoreettista viitekehystä, joka perustuu yritysten yhteiskuntavastuuseen ja sidosryhmäteoriaan. Analyysi perustuu Suomen Yrittäjien, Finnveran ja Työ- ja elinkeinoministeriön pk-yritysbarometrin aineistoon, joka tarjoaa kattavan kuvan 5201 suomalaisen pk-yrityksen näkemyksistä ja toimista ilmastonmuutoksen hillitsemiseksi. Tutkimustulokset osoittavat, että yritysten ilmastotoimet ovat monipuolisia, ja ne keskittyvät erityisesti energiatehokkuuden parantamiseen, päästöjen vähentämiseen ja kierrätyksen edistämiseen. Vaikka ilmastonmuutoksen hillitseminen on merkittävä globaali haaste, vain osa pk-yrityksistä näkee sen vaikuttavan suoraan liiketoimintaansa. Tulosten perusteella pk-yritysten ilmastotoimia ohjaavat useimmiten yrityksen arvot ja strategia, kustannussäästöt ja tehokkuuden lisääminen, sekä yrityskuvan rakentaminen. Vaikka lähes puolet pk-yrityksistä ei näe ilmastonmuutoksen hillitsemistoimilla olevan merkitystä liiketoiminnalleen, on joukossa yrityksiä, jotka näkevät toimissa myös liiketoimintamahdollisuuksia. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena oli lisätä ymmärrystä pk-yritysten roolista ilmastonmuutoksen torjunnassa ja tarjota tietoa siitä, miten pk-yrityksiä voidaan tukea kestävämpiin toimintatapoihin siirtymisessä. Vaikka pk-yritysten panos ilmastonmuutoksen torjunnassa on merkittävä, vain pieni osuus niistä on asettanut itselleen ilmastopäästöjen vähennystavoitteita. Tulokset korostavat tarvetta poliittisille toimenpiteille, jotka kannustavat ja tukevat pk-yrityksiä ilmastotoimien toteuttamisessa. Tutkimustulokset tarjoavat arvokasta tietoa pk-yritysten ilmastotoimien nykytilasta ja niiden taustalla vaikuttavista motiiveista. Tämä tieto voi auttaa suunnittelemaan tehokkaita kannustimia ja ohjauskeinoja ilmastonmuutoksen torjumiseksi. Jatkotutkimus aiheesta voisi keskittyä tarkemmin yksittäisiin toimialoihin tai yrityskokoluokkiin ja syventyä yksityiskohtaisemmin yritysten sisäisiin ja ulkoisiin motivaatiotekijöihin.

This thesis discusses short-term parking pricing in the context of Finnish shopping centre parking halls. The focus is on one shopping centre located in Helsinki where parking fees are high and there is a constant need for raising the prices. Therefore, it is important to have a strategy that maximises parking hall income without compromising the customers' interest. If the prices are too high, customers will choose to park elsewhere or reduce their parking in private parking halls. There is a lot of competition with off-street parking competing against on-street parking and access parking, not to mention other parking halls. The main goal of this thesis is to raise problems with parking pricing and discuss how to find the most beneficial pricing method. To achieve this, this thesis project conducted an analysis on one Finnish shopping centre parking hall data. This data was analysed to discover the average behaviour of the parkers and how the raised parking fees affect both the parker numbers and the income of the parking hall. In addition, several pricing strategies from literature and real-life examples were discussed and evaluated, and later combined with the analysis results. The results showed that there are some similarities with results from literature but there were some surprising outcomes too. It seems that higher average hourly prices are correlated with longer stays, but still the parkers who tend to park longer have more inelastic parking habits than those who park for shorter durations. The calculated price elasticity of demand values show that compared to other parking halls, parking is on average more elastic in the analysed parking hall. This further emphasises the importance of milder price raises at least for the shorter parking durations. Moreover, there are noticeable but explainable characteristics in parker behaviour. Most of the parkers prefer to park for under one hour to take advantage of the first parking hour being free. This leads to profit losses in both the shopping centre and parking hall income. Therefore, a dynamic pricing strategy is suggested as one pricing option, since it adjusts the prices automatically based on occupancy rates. Although there are some challenges with this particular method, in the long run it could turn out to be the most beneficial for both the parking hall owners and the parkers. To conclude, choosing a suitable pricing strategy and model for a parking hall is crucial and the decisions should be based on findings from data.

In this thesis the influential oil market model proposed by Kilian and Murphy (2014) is studied with statistical identification. The identification method used provides point identification in the set defined by restrictions used in the earlier literature. This method allows us to obtain point estimates for the price elasticity of oil production which has been the source of differences in the results of the earlier literature. Additionally, the importance of oil market shocks in explaining the changes in oil prices is studied with the identified models. The earlier literature suggests that oil demand shocks are more important drivers of oil prices than oil supply shocks. Studies allowing for higher levels of price elasticity of oil production find oil production shocks to be relatively more important than the studies using low upper bounds for this elasticity. According to microeconomic studies, higher levels of price elasticity of oil production could be explained by increases in shale oil production. Identification of the oil market SVAR model is achieved by extracting the model which maximizes the independence of the structural shocks. This optimization task can be challenging. Hence the performance of the estimation can be improved with prior knowledge about the structural shocks by inclusion of restrictions into the optimization problem. In this thesis the distance covariance measure is used to measure the independence of the structural shocks. The distance covariance measure is minimized to obtain the model with the most independent structural shocks in the set defined by the restrictions. The constrained optimization problem is solved with external penalty optimization method. Two distinct minima are obtained from the optimization task which suggest different dynamics for the oil market shocks. The first optima suggest that the price elasticity of oil production is close to zero. The other optima suggest higher levels for this elasticity. Both optima suggest that the elasticity of oil production differs in response to different shocks. With the first optima supply shocks are found to be more important drivers of oil prices than found in the earlier literature. With the second optima the importance of production shocks is found to be more similar to the results obtained in the earlier literature. Additionally, speculative shocks are found to be important drivers of the oil prices with this optimum. The method which uses external penalty optimization method is compared to the method based on sampling used earlier in the literature. It is found that the method based on sampling finds less independent structural shocks than the method based on external penalty optimization method.

In this thesis, my aim is to provide some clarity on how the Finnish economy responded to the European carbon policy shocks. These shocks are identified by using interday price variation of the European Union emission trading certificate futures markets around regulatory changes in the carbon policy regime. Using this instrumental variable, the structural shocks of interest i.e., carbon policy shock, can be identified. In addition to the empirical finding on the Finnish economy, this thesis extends the previously identified time series on the regulatory surprises. Based on the empirical results of this thesis propose, it can be argued that the structural shocks emitting from the European Union carbon policy regime have a dual effect on the Finnish economy. A short-term stimulating effect and a long-term slowing effect. Only the long-term effects are statistically significant, the results are still interestingly different from the results from a European Union-wide study. The possible reasons behind these effects are also discussed.

Tekstiiliteollisuus on yksi maailman eniten saastuttavista teollisuuden aloista ja sen globaalit ilmasto- ja ympäristövaikutukset ovat mittavat. Osana EU:n kestävän kehityksen ohjelmaa Euroopan komissio on vuonna 2022 julkaissut uuden kestäviä ja kiertotalouteen perustuvia tekstiilejä koskevan EU:n strategian (tekstiilistrategia), jonka tavoitteena on kannustaa unionin jäsenmaita luomaan kestävämpään tekstiilijärjestelmään ohjaavaa sääntelyä. Tämän tutkielman tavoitteena on selvittää, millaisia talouspoliittisia keinoja tekstiilialan ilmastopäästötavoitteiden saavuttamiseksi voidaan hyödyntää tekstiilialan erityispiirteet huomioiden. Tekstiilialan erityispiirteisiin kuuluvat alati kasvava tuotanto, alhainen materiaalien kierrätysaste ja pitkät, globaalit tuotantoketjut. EU:n alueella kulutettujen tekstiilien ilmastopäästöistä 75 % syntyy EU:n ulkopuolella. Kansallisella verosääntelyllä voidaan ohjata tekstiilituotteiden kulutusta, mutta päästövähennystavoitteiden saavuttaminen vaatii kansallisten ja alueellisten päästökauppamekanismien yhdistämistä ja päästötavoitteiden yhdenmukaisuutta. Suurin osa tekstiilialan päästöistä syntyy tekstiilimateriaalin tuotantovaiheessa, joten toimilla, jotka edistävät energiaintensiivisen tuotannon päästövähennyksiä, on suurin potentiaali vaikuttaa koko alan ilmastopäästöihin.

The broad US dollar index has emerged as a global risk factor since the global financial crisis (GFC). When the spot dollar exchange rate appreciates strongly against a broad basket of currencies, there is a substantial decline in global dollar credit and a tightening of global financial conditions. This relationship reflects several macroeconomic and financial forces, of which mostly global factors related to international finance are considered. In particular, this thesis examines how the relationship is associated with risk appetite, leverage, and balance sheet capacity of global banks to intermediate cross-border capital flows. In addition, the underlying causes are considered through the global role of the dollar as the dominant currency for the international monetary and financial system. The empirical framework examines the dynamic relationship between the dollar, aggregate dollar-denominated cross-border bank flows, and various measures of balance sheet capacity of financial intermediaries. The mechanism follows Bruno and Shin (2015a, b) and the risk-taking channel of exchange rate fluctuations, where a dollar appreciation leads to a decline in the supply of dollar funding through reduced risk-taking capacity of global banks in the presence of currency mismatches. In addition, the framework is evaluated using a measure of global safe asset demand for dollar assets. Both vector autoregressions (VARs) and local projections (LPs) are used for structural analysis. The results support the mechanism in terms of economic and statistical significance, which are pronounced when the 30-year Treasury-swap spread is used as the measure of global intermediary capacity and also hold for the post-GFC sample. The benchmark model suggests that a positive unit shock in the widening of the swap spread immediately leads to a 0.8% increase in the growth of dollar-denominated cross-border bank flows and an equivalent contemporaneous depreciation of the dollar. The short-term effects of a swap spread shock last over three quarters. In turn, a broad dollar appreciation shock causes a narrowing of the 30-year Treasury-swap spread and a decline in the short-term growth of dollar-denominated cross-border bank flows. A positive shock to global demand for safe assets denominated in dollars is associated with a simultaneous 0.6% appreciation of the dollar. While the empirical evidence in this thesis does not establish a strong causal link between exchange rate movements, capital flows, and intermediary constraints, the results are consistent with similar work in the literature. Especially, the relationship between the 30-year Treasury-swap spread, bank leverage, and the dollar is consistent with studies that examine in more detail the co-movement between binding leverage constraints on global banks, higher costs of global dollar funding, and the strength of the dollar. The emergence of the post-GFC relationship and sustained appreciation of the dollar are typically found to be related to US monetary policy, increased role of the dollar as an international currency, greater demand for dollar assets, and reduced financial intermediation capacity in the dollar funding markets.

This thesis aims to identify and measure labor demand and supply shocks caused by COVID-19 in Finland in 2020 and aims to replicate results from an earlier study by Brinca et al. in 2021. The method utilized is a model estimation on a Bayesian structural vector autoregression framework on quarterly data of hours worked and real wages by work sector. In order to capture the labor market dynamics in Finland within the framework, a literature review is conducted and the theory and methods are then outlined. Informative priors and literature-based parameters are established for the model, and analysis software computation is then used to and estimate the model. The model estimations show that most sectors suffered large negative supply and demand shocks in the first quarter of 2020, with significant heterogeneity between sectoral shock response. It is assessed that sectors with greater possibilities of remote work are less affected by the shocks than sectors of high-contact work. Labor supply shocks account for over 80% of the total shock effects. In the second quarter of 2020, most sectors, in turn, experienced large positive supply and demand shocks that affected the sectors with significant heterogeneity once more, with the previous quarter’s most affected sectors again experiencing the largest shocks. Labor supply shocks again accounted for around 80% of the total shock effects. The results in this thesis share a trend with the earlier study in sector heterogeneity and the shocks’ total impacts, but find an increased share in the effect of labor supply shocks on the total impact of the COVID-19 shocks.

This master's thesis examines how the statutory minimum wage reform introduced in 2015 has affected the German labor market structure and what conclusions can be drawn from it with an eye to the future. The purpose is to understand how the labor market has reacted and adapted to significantly increased labor costs in the short term. Additionally, we must consider the potential long-term adverse effects in Germany and the EU since we are gradually transitioning into an era of higher minimum wages. The topic of this thesis is partly motivated by the upcoming European minimum wage directive, whose main objective is to provide adequate working and living conditions for all European workers in the near future. The subject is also topical because the minimum wage's role is even more emphasized during the economic recession. The structure of the thesis is a literature review, and the latest scientific literature has been used as an aid in the analysis and interpretation of observations. The goal is also to find out where further research should be directed. The examination of the minimum wage effects is divided between the short, medium, and long term. The primary focus has been on evaluating the key adjustment channels behind the observed employment elasticities and to what extent these mechanisms could be utilized in future minimum wage reforms. In other words, how to efficiently avoid the possible harmful effects of the minimum wage. In the case of Germany, the focus is on the adjustment mechanisms (e.g., the price pass-through effect, a degree of monopsony power, reductions in working hours) used by firms and the employment market dynamics that could explain the relatively small-scale observed unemployment effects in the short and medium term, such as the degree of compliance with the policy and the level of market competition. The putty-clay model is used for the longer-term evaluation, where possible adverse effects are examined from the viewpoint of automation and digitalization. Examining the long-term effects is essential, but unfortunately, it has not yet been extensively studied. Evidence suggests that the current minimum wage development may accelerate capital-labor substitution and reduce the demand for low-skilled workers in automatable jobs. Because this development is slow, future research should concentrate on distinguishing between short-and long-term effects more effectively. At present, the long-term employment effects are still ambiguous and theoretical but potentially quite substantial due to investments in physical capital and technological solutions. Consequently, minimum wage increases and related policy adjustments should be made considering the country's economic reality.

This thesis provides a comprehensive review of the extent a Fiscal Union can address the inherent weaknesses of insufficient policy coordination, limited risk-sharing mechanisms and incomplete Banking Union within the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). Economic concerns over the functioning of the EMU have persisted since its establishment, but the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted these intrinsic weaknesses. This paper focuses on a Fiscal Union primarily as an instrument of stabilisation given that the COVID-19 pandemic and earlier crises have underlined that the EMU is particularly vulnerable to economic shocks causing asymmetric effects across the union. This thesis compares the EMU currency area with the US currency area using the Optimum Currency Area (OCA) theory and finds that with less labour and capital mobility, the EMU would significantly benefit from a Fiscal Union to address arising imbalances. Furthermore, many of the intrinsic weaknesses of the EMU relate directly to the absence of fiscal integration given a single monetary policy. Striving towards a Fiscal Union for the euro area would help address the inherent weaknesses by improving monetary-fiscal policy coordination, providing better risk-sharing mechanisms and incentivising private markets to contribute effectively to risk-sharing. This paper finds that a Fiscal Union is more suitable acting as a stabilising function to counteract the asymmetric effects of aggregate shocks but less so in ensuring economic convergence across the union. Appropriate next steps are ensuring a fiscal backstop for the Banking Union, improving the monitoring of funds distributed by the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), and stronger enforcement of fiscal rules set by the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP). Establishing a permanent crisis management mechanism similar to the NGEU would improve the union's readiness for future shocks. Without further progress to improve the resilience of the EMU, the union continues to face existential risk. Progress towards improving the competitiveness and resilience of the EMU cannot be categorically split into features relating to fiscal, economic, financial, and political integration, as these all affect each other. The interdependence of these aspects emphasises that on its own, a Fiscal Union cannot overcome the inherent weaknesses of the EMU. Therefore, it is fundamental to recognise that development toward a more resilient EMU requires progress within all these aspects.