This paper evaluates the labour market effects of the introduction of the polytechnic education system in Finland. The polytechnic reform gradually transformed former vocational colleges into polytechnics. Since the timing of the reform differed across schools, we can compare the performance of...

This paper evaluates the labour market effects of the introduction of the polytechnic education system in Finland. The polytechnic reform gradually transformed former vocational colleges into polytechnics. Since the timing of the reform differed across schools, we can compare the performance of...

We exploit admission cutoffs to secondary schools to study the effects of general academically oriented, versus vocational secondary schooling on cognitive and non-cognitive skills using a regression discontinuity design. We measure these skills using the Finnish Defence Forces Basic Skills Test...

We study the effect of school closures and the transition from on-site to on-line teaching during the Covid-19 pandemic in the Finnish upper secondary schools. To identify the effects we exploit variation in the length of school closure periods across schools between autumn 2020 and spring 2021....

Many authors have recently suggested that the heterogeneity in the quality of early education may be one of the key mechanisms underlying the intergenerational persistence of earnings. This paper estimates the effect of a major educational reform on the intergenerational income mobility in...

The Finnish comprehensive school reform replaced the old two-track school system with a uniform nine-year comprehensive school and significantly reduced the degree of heterogeneity in the Finnish primary and secondary education. We estimate the effect of this reform on the test scores in the...

We use lifetime job histories from the pension records to evaluate changes in job stability in Finland between 1963 and 2004. We specify a duration model and estimate the effects of elapsed duration, age, and calendar time on the hazard of job ending using individual-level panel data spanning...

Low-wage subsidies are often proposed as a solution to the unemployment problem among the low skilled. Yet the empirical evidence on the effects of low-wage subsidies is surprisingly scarce. This paper examines the employment effects of a Finnish payroll tax subsidy scheme, which is targeted at...

We study the long-term effects of human displacement using individual-level panel data on forced migrants and comparable non-migrants. After World War II, Finland ceded a tenth of its territory to the Soviet Union and resettled the entire population living in these areas in the remaining parts...

Investing in human capital increases lifetime income, but these investments may involve substantial risk. In this paper we use a Finnish panel spanning 22 years to predict the mean, the variance and the skew of the present value of lifetime income, and to calculate certainty equivalent lifetime...