Tuulia Hakola-Uusitalo appointed as Director General of the VATT Institute for Economic Research
The Government has appointed Tuulia Hakola-Uusitalo, Doctor of Social Sciences, as Director General of the VATT Institute for Economic Research (VATT) for the five-year term 2025–2029.
The Government has appointed Tuulia Hakola-Uusitalo, Doctor of Social Sciences, as Director General of the VATT Institute for Economic Research (VATT) for the five-year term 2025–2029. Hakola-Uusitalo was appointed to the position from 1.1.2025 to 31.12.2029. The appointment was made by the Government today, Thursday 21 November.
Hakola-Uusitalo is currently the Research Director and acting Director General at VATT Institute for Economic Research. She has worked at VATT since October 2023.
"VATT combines ambitious scientific research with interesting economic policy questions. It is great to be part of this research community that uses internationally unique register data. VATT has been at the forefront of this research in Finland for several decades," says Hakola-Uusitalo.
Hakola-Uusitalo has a long career as a researcher and government official. She has also held a wide range of management positions in the public sector. She defended her doctoral thesis in economics at the University of Helsinki in 2002. Her thesis focused on the effect of the financial incentives on the timing of retirement.
Hakola-Uusitalo's career has mainly focused on developing Finnish ex ante impact assessment of policy reforms. Before joining VATT, Hakola-Uusitalo worked as the Research Director at the Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority (2019–2023), the Head of the Structural Unit at the Ministry of Finance (2007–2019) and the Chief Economist at the Finnish Centre for Pensions (2003–2007). She has also worked as a researcher at VATT (1998–2001).
Since Hakola-Uusitalo's previous position at VATT, the institute has launched a new function, called Dataroom. It produces faster data analysis to support decision-making ex ante.
"We are facing an interesting challenge on how to successfully integrate the Data Room to a well-functioning research institute that mainly conducts ex-post evaluation of a high academic quality," says Hakola-Uusitalo.
Hakola-Uusitalo's upcoming term (2025–2029) as the Director General starts in a bad economic situation when the government undertakes big expenditure cuts. The new Director General emphasizes that VATT's research themes must focus on the major economic policy issues.
'As a whole, VATT has succeeded focusing on important economic questions. Research, however, is done one project at a time. The bigger picture is the sum of several research projects, and it does not emerge automatically, so sometimes this needs an extra effort. Of course, it would be nice to expand to new research areas, but this is hindered by the scarcity of resources and the need to build research expertise on a long-term basis."
More information:
Tuulia Hakola-Uusitalo
Acting Director General, Research Director (Director General as of 1.1.2025)
[email protected]
+358 295 519 501
Anne Moilanen
Interim Director of Communications
[email protected]
+358 295 519 444
Tuulia Hakola-Uusitalo
Appointments at VATT
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