Employment-output link in Finland: evidence from regional-level data

Regional Labour Market Adjustment: Are Positive and Negative Shocks Different?

This paper investigates the evolution of regional disparities in Finland between 1988 and 1997. The analysis focuses on per capita GDP and its subcomponents, particularly labour productivity, jobs and population. The results show, first, that the evolution of labour productivity and the number of jobs account for the emerged regional divergence of per capita GDP during 1990-1995. Second, even though inter-regional migration tends to have convergent effects on regional per capita GDP, its effect was not strong enough during 1990-1995: the divergence of productivity and jobs dominated. Third%2C among divergent factors (productivity and jobs), manufacturing contributes the most to the divergen…

Regional Matching Frictions and Aggregate Unemployment

This study demonstrates that a stochastic frontier approach applied to regional level data offers a convenient and interesting method to examine how regional differences in matching efficiency and structural factors contribute to aggregate unemployment. The study reveals notable and temporally stable differences in matching efficiency across travel-to-work areas in Finland. If all areas were as efficient as the most efficient one, the number of hirings would increase by about 40 per cent. This would reduce the aggregate unemployment rate from the current 8.5 per cent level to 6.0 per cent. If all the areas shared the same structural characteristics as the most favourable area, the aggregate…

Innovation Dynamics in Space: Local Actors and Local Factors

This paper addresses the issue of technogenesis and its geographical pattern. It aims to offer both a general analysis framework and a test on innovation data from several European cities. This framework is mainly built on the product life-cycle and the incubation approach. On the basis of this framework, it is argued that the phases of an industrial life-cycle have several firm-specific effects. First, these phases influence innovativeness and thus profit levels, output and employment of firms in a spatially distinct way. Second, the phases of the life-cycle mirror the importance of local factors for innovations, and third, they affect strategic decisions of firms, inter alia by influencin…

Matching inefficiencies, regional disparities and unemployment

.  In this paper we apply a stochastic frontier approach to examine how matching inefficiencies and regional disparities in structural factors contribute to regional and aggregate unemployment. Our results suggest that there would be a substantial decline in aggregate unemployment if (i) all local labour offices operated with full efficiency or (ii) they shared the same structure of job seekers and vacant jobs as the most favourable office. In the former case an increase in hirings would lower the average unemployment rate by 2.4 percentage points. In the latter case the decrease would be 1.4 percentage points. Further, we find that fixed effects are positively correlated with both a more f…

Returns to scale in a matching model: evidence from disaggregated panel data

The returns to scale in the matching function play an important role in models with endogenous search effort. Due to positive externalities, increasing returns to scale in matching can support high or low activity equilibrium in the labour market. In this study, we examine this issue using panel data from Finnish employment offices. The study finds that the results from the Cobb–Douglas and translog specification are qualitatively different. The CD specification of the matching function exhibits constant returns to scale. The translog specification, in turn, exhibits increasing returns to scale. The elasticity estimate for returns, using the preferred specification and minimum and maximum s…

Regional labor markets in Finland: Adjustment to total versus region-specific shocks

This article analyses regional labor market adjustment in the Finnish provinces during 1976-2000. We investigate the inter-relations of employment, unemployment, labor force participation, and migration to see how a change in region-specific and total labor demand is adjusted. The analysis reveals that region-specific labor demand shocks adjust mainly via participation, whereas total shocks are adjusted by unemployment. The region-specific component of labor demand shock has shorter-lived effects on unemployment and participation, but its effect on employment is permanent. Conversely, total shocks leave no permanent effect. Migration is more important in the region-specific case where, afte…

The Role of Education in Self–Employment Success in Finland

This paper analyzes the effect of self–employed persons’ education on the success of their firms during the economic downturn and upturn of the 1990's. It is found that the business cycle affects the relative closure rates of firms run by self–employed with any level of education. Exit probability is lower for the highly educated during bust, but higher in boom. This is accounted for by two facts. First, running a small firm is argued to be a less attractive choice to wage work, particularly for the highly educated, due to lower earning prospects, less stable stream of earnings, and the cultural tradition of working in large corporations. Second, the highly educated faced a higher outside d…

Matching in thin labour markets: panel data evidence from Finland, 1991-2002

The matching function that postulates a relationship between the flow of new matches and stock of job seekers and vacancies has attracted considerable attention, both theoretical and empirical during the last decade. In this paper the properties of a matching function are examined by using a large panel data set from Finland. The data has a high frequency and it is highly disaggregated, comprising monthly data on 174 work-to-travel areas from a 12-year period between January 1991 and August 2002. We test for density effects, i.e. the importance of the size of markets on matching efficiency. The robustness and importance of our empirical findings are guaranteed by the quality of data. First …

Innovation dynamics in space. Local actors and local factors

This paper addresses the issue of technogenesis and its geographical pattern. It aims to offer both a general analysis framework and a test on innovation data from several European cities. This framework is mainly built on the product life-cycle and the incubation approach. On the basis of this framework, it is argued that the phases of an industrial life-cycle have several firm-specific effects. First, these phases influence innovativeness and thus profit levels, output and employment of firms in a spatially distinct way. Second, the phases of the life-cycle mirror the importance of local factors for innovations, and third, they affect strategic decisions of firms, inter alia by influencin…