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Työpoliittinen aikakauskirja 3/2018 English Summaries
English summaries
Can economic growth still go on? Approaches to Finland in the year 2040
Juha Honkatukia, Adjunct professor, Dr. Sc. (Econ.), Research Manager, National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL)
Johanna Kohl, Adjunct professor, Dr. (Soc.Sc.), Foresight Development Manager, Natural Resources Institute Finland (LUKE)
Jere Lehtomaa, M.Sc. (Agriculture
and Forestry), Doctoral student, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich
The Finnish economy has started to recover from an almost decade-long slump. It faces the same problems it faced a decade ago, with the
rapid ageing of the population perhaps first and foremost among them. But the structure of the economy has also been affected, with the reces- sion hurting mostly manufacturing industries. It is not clear what these developments mean for the long-run growth potential of the economy. Several policies aim at strengthening the growth potential, however, ranging from innovation pol- icies to labour market and pension reforms to the trimming of the public sector. This article exam- ines the future growth prospects of the Finnish economy in the light of these initiatives with the help of quantitative scenarios. We utilize numer- ical, economic simulation modelling for gener- ating the scenarios but combine them not only with traditional, economic data, but also methods of futures studies and anticipation. Our central findings are that the reforms and technological
break-throughs may boost the growth potential of the economy significantly, and unless they fail completely, it seems plausible that the economy may settle to fairly rapid growth in the 2020s and 2030s.
Incentives for partial employment
Tomi Kyyrä, PhD (Econ.), Research professor, VATT Institute for Economic Research
Tuomas Matikka, PhD (Econ.), Senior researcher, VATT Institute for Economic Research
Hanna Pesola, PhD (Econ.), Senior researcher, VATT Institute for Economic Research
In 2014 an earnings disregard was introduced for unemployment benefits in Finland with the aim of encouraging unemployed to work on a part- time or temporary basis. The earnings disre- gard and partial unemployment benefits enable
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