Search results for "ta511"
showing 10 items of 82 documents
A kink that makes you sick : The effect of sick pay on absence
2018
We exploit a regression kink design to estimate the elasticity of the duration of sickness absence with respect to replacement rate. Elasticity is a central parameter in defining the optimal social insurance scheme compensating for lost earnings due to sickness. We use comprehensive administrative data and a kink in the policy rule near the median earnings. We find a statistically significant estimate of the elasticity of the order of one. peerReviewed
More skilled, better paid : labour-market returns to postsecondary vocational education
2017
Outside the USA, relatively little is known about the labour-market returns to postsecondary vocational (or polytechnic) education. Yet, polytechnics in Europe are distinct from US community colleges. This paper focuses on the labour-market returns to polytechnic attendance in Finland, where polytechnics are representative of many European countries. Using matching methods and longitudinal administrative data, we find that, compared to individuals with no postsecondary education, students who attend polytechnics have higher annual earnings of €3,300 to €3,700 and employment gains of 2.5 to 6.6 percentage points 10 years after the entry decision. However, the returns vary by personal charact…
Trade imbalances within the euro area and with respect to the rest of the world
2015
Abstract Many studies have explored the determinants of current account balances in Europe. However, only in a few studies has trade balance been decomposed into intra balance, trade balance vis-a-vis the euro area, and extra balance, trade balance vis-a-vis the rest of the world. This decomposition is necessary for us to understand why some core euro area countries are acting as financial intermediaries for the periphery countries. Furthermore, the determinants of intra and extra balances might be different because nominal exchange rate cannot adjust between the EMU countries while their financial markets are highly integrated. Thus, we apply this decomposition and supplement the previous …
Stock market information and the relationship between real exchange rate and real interest rates
2013
In this paper we propose to augment the traditional relationship between real exchange rates and real interest rates (RERI) by adding the stock market equilibrium condition to it. We introduce the relative dividend yield as the new information variable. In the empirical analysis we use recent monthly observations from the U.K., Japan, Canada and Eurozone, all relative to the U.S. We show that the introduction of stock market information is highly relevant for the functioning of the RERI hypothesis. Based on the results from the cointegration analysis the role of relative stock market performance is especially important in the short- term (3 month) horizon, where the augmented RERI represent…
Democracy, political risks and stock market performance
2015
We study whether the emerging stock markets’ performance is affected by direct and indirect effects of democracy level and political risk. We argue that the relationship between democracy level and the political risk is parabolic instead of a simple linear relation i.e. there exists a limit in democracy after which the political risk begins to decline and this is reflected in stock prices. Using panel data for 38 emerging markets at yearly frequency and controlling for several domestic and international factors, we find a fairly robust evidence that during the period 2000-2010, this relationship is true and after some threshold, the more democratic countries produce higher returns. Similar …
Electoral vulnerability and size of local governments: Evidence from voting on municipal mergers
2014
Abstract We analyze how anticipated changes in the electoral vulnerability of municipal councilors affect their voting behavior over municipal mergers. The electoral vulnerability changes due to a merger because it changes the composition of political competitors and the number of available seats in the next election. We use this variation for identification and find that the smaller the increase in the electoral vulnerability of a councilor, the more likely he is to vote for the merger. The documented effect is not driven by the behavioral response of the voters, or by party-line considerations. The councilors' desire to avoid personal electoral competition may lead to sub-optimally small …
Cartels Uncovered
2018
How many cartels are there? The answer is important in assessing the efficiency of competition policy. We present a Hidden Markov Model that answers the question, taking into account that often we do not know whether a cartel exists in an industry or not. Our model identifies key policy parameters from data generated under different competition policy regimes and may be used with time-series or panel data. We take the model to data from a period of legal cartels - Finnish manufacturing industries 1951 - 1990. Our estimates suggest that by the end of the period, almost all industries were cartelized.
Rural futures in developed economies: The case of Finland
2015
Abstract This study presents four possible images of rural futures in Finland: decentralized bio-economy, colonial countryside, museum countryside and rural business islets. They are distilled through literature reviews, futures workshops and futures tables. Alternative specifications of structures, contents and agencies result in highly divergent states of key dimensions and, consequently, divergent rural futures. This diversity challenges the conventional public wisdom or intellectual monoculture that considers decay as the only future for rural areas. Key challenges in crafting plausible but divergent futures images are finding an appropriate level of abstraction or “flight altitude”, es…
Longitudinal Associations between Physical Activity and Educational Outcomes
2017
Supplemental digital content is available in the text.
When does Regression discontinuity design work? Evidence from random election outcomes
2018
We use elections data in which a large number of ties in vote counts between candidates are resolved via a lottery to study the personal incumbency advantage. We benchmark non‐experimental regression discontinuity design (RDD) estimates against the estimate produced by this experiment that takes place exactly at the cutoff. The experimental estimate suggests that there is no personal incumbency advantage. In contrast, conventional local polynomial RDD estimates suggest a moderate and statistically significant effect. Bias‐corrected RDD estimates that apply robust inference are, however, in line with the experimental estimate. Therefore, state‐of‐the‐art implementation of RDD can meet the re…