The project highlights Finland as a solid example of effective and timely policy decisions due to availability of data. The latest report (December 3) provides insight on the latest developments in the labour market and for households and firms.
E-prescribing reduces the co-prescribing of harmful drug-combinations. This is according to a new study using comprehensive administrative data and the staggered introduction of a nationwide electronic prescribing system in Finland.
Anni Huhtala has served as Director General at VATT since 2015. During this period research indicators, which put particular emphasis on publication quality, have developed positively. "The Director General's task is to create an enabling framework for doing research," Huhtala describes her role at VATT.
An empirical study published in the Journal of Political Economy finds that VAT cuts are less likely to be passed on to consumer prices than VAT hikes. Following a temporary VAT cut, prices can even be higher than on onset.
Juhana Vartiainen was working in Sweden as a civil servant, before he became the director general of VATT. He returned to Finland, because he felt it was his duty to alert Finns of the dangers of the widening sustainability gap. “The same way doctors defend vaccinations, economists must be ready to bring economist reasoning into society”, Vartiainen calls upon his profession.
To celebrate VATT’s 30th anniversary we are publishing a series of texts presenting our core fields of research. In this second part of the series, we are focusing on our research into housing subsidies and taxes.
The requirement to wear face masks reduced people's mobility somewhat in the short term, whereas over a longer time period, the policy did not affect mobility. This is the finding of a recent study on the impacts of compulsory face mask policies on community mobility in Germany.
International corporate taxation is in need of an overhaul but none of the reform proposals made so far provides an entirely satisfactory solution to the problem. The Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB) proposed by the European Union would change the fundamentals of the international tax system and limit profit shifting. At the same time, it would probably also reduce Finland’s corporate tax revenue. A combination of different corporate tax reforms is unlikely to result in a workable package.
The activation model made interpreting the employment impacts of the basic income experiment more difficult, but does it really matter? In any case, few employment schemes have been evaluated with such accuracy: the employment impacts of basic income have been so small that it can never be the first choice when the aim is to boost employment.
11 February 2021
Alexander Willén (NHH Norwegian School of Economics)
10.30 AM - 11.30 AM
04 February 2021
José Montalbán Castilla (Institute for Social Research, SOFI)
10.30 AM - 11.30 AM
28 January 2021
Benjamin Schoefer (University of California, Berkeley)
21 January 2021
Emily Nix (USC Marshall)
3.30 PM - 4.30 PM
Please register
14 January 2021
Terhi Ravaska (VATT)
10.30 AM - 11.30 AM
My Path 
Skills, Education and the Future of Work 
BCDC Energy 
Work, Inequality, and Public Policy 
Smart Energy Transition 
Economicy Policy Council 
Government's Analysis, Assessment and Research Activities