Page 66 - Työpoliittinen aikakauskirja 2 2017

English Summaries
Työpoliittinen aikakauskirja 2/2017
the Central Statistical O ce of Finland (pres- ently Statistics Finland) from the Ministry of Transport and Public Works (presently the Ministry of Economic A airs and Employment). In 1977, the data content of the inquiry was broadened and it was renamed as the Labour Force Survey. After Finland joined the European Union in 1995, the LFS was revised to meet the EU regulation on labour force statistics. The LFS still produces survey-based, internation- ally comparable data on the Finnish labour force.
The roots of Employment Statistics (1987–) are in population censuses carried out since 1950. Employment Statistics produce e.g. data by region on the population’s economic activ- ity by utilising register data. At rst, data on the population's economic activity was received from questionnaire data collections in connec- tion with the population census. After data pro- cessing developed in the 1960's and the Finnish personal identi cation number (that is still cur- rently in use) was adopted, it became possible to use register data for the population census and combine a person’s data using the identi cation number. Register data was adopted gradually in population censuses and the 1990 population census was compiled using only register data.
Because of the ongoing digital revolution, it is important to maintain the quality of the o cial labour market statistics, so that reliable informa- tion is available to everyone. At the same time, it is important to be able to react swiftly to new requirements that the growing digitalization and big data brings.
Sluggish productivity development in Finland has astonished economists. Bad management is one suspect of this phenomenon. Indeed, economic growth literature has paid increas- ing attention to the role of management. Bad management may hamper innovation, renewal and productivity growth within rms. On the other hand, it has also been pointed out that the quality of management and productivity at the level of total economy (i.e. at the aggregate level) may be improved through the reallocation of resources between heterogeneous rms. In this so-called ‘creative destruction’, labour reallo- cates from badly managed and low productivity rms to better managed and higher productivity rms. Unfortunately, Finland has not yet been included in studies that would allow for a reliable comparison of the quality of management prac- tices in Finland compared to leading countries. Researchers have also not had access to micro- level data, which would allow for the analysis of the sources and the micro-level mechanisms of management improvements and for the analysis of management’s e ects on productivity, sur- vival and employment among rms. We have attempted to ll this gap in the ‘Taidot Työhön’ project (‘Skills, Education and the Future of Work’), funded from 2016–2019 by the Strategic Research Council at the Academy of Finland. With this funding, the Finnish Management and Organizational Practices Survey (FMOP-survey) is now collected by Statistics Finland. Some pre- liminary analyses are also now being conducted. It seems that the management practices in the Finnish manufacturing establishments are of a high quality. Complementary approaches based on the evaluation of managers’ skills or rms’ innovativeness are lending some support to the assessment. In the future, we intend to analyse the quality, determinants and economic conse- quences of management skills in greater detail by linking the FMOP-survey to other rm- and individual-level data sources.
The quality of management, economic renewal and productivity: an assessment of the Finnish state
Mika Maliranta, PhD (Economics), Re- search Director at the Research Institute of the Finnish Economy ETLA, Professor at the University of Jyväskylä
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