An estimate of self-employment income underreporting in Finland

This paper estimates the extent of income underreporting by the self-employed in Finland using the expenditure based approach developed by Pissarides & Weber (1989). Household spending data are for the years 1994 to 1996. Depending on how a selfemployed household is defined, the results suggest that self-employment income in Finland is underreported by some 16-40%. Since income for the self-employed is about 8 % of all incomes in Finland, the size of this part of the black economy in Finland is estimated to be about 1.3-3.2% of GDP.

The association of alcohol dependency with employment probability: Evidence from the population survey Health 2000 in Finland

In this paper we investigate to what extent alcohol dependent individuals fare worse in the Finnish labour market, using data from a large Finnish health survey. We used the ICD-10 criteria for alcohol dependence assessed by a structured diagnostic interview (CIDI). We find that there are substantial disadvantages for alcohol dependent men and women in the labour market, in the sense that they have lower employment probabilities. Treating alcohol dependence as an exogenous variable, we find that alcohol dependence is associated with a decrease in the probability of full time work of around 15% for men and 13% for women. However, accounting for endogeneity increases the negative effect to some 20-25% for men and to some 40-50% for women. – Alcohol ; alcoholism ; employment ; FinlandTutkimus tarkastelee alkoholiriippuvaisten henkilöiden asemaa suomalaisilla työmarkkinoilla hyödyntäen suurta terveyskyselyaineistoa. Alkoholiriippuvuutta mitataan strukturoidun kyselymenetelmän (CIDI) avulla rakennetulla ICD-mitalla. Tutkimuksessa havaittiin, että alkoholiriippuvaisilla miehillä ja naisilla on huomattavasti ei-alkoholiriippuvaisia miehiä ja naisia alhaisempi todennäköisyys olla kokopäivätyössä. Käsiteltäessä alkoholiriippuvuutta eksogeenisena muuttujana, havaittiin että alkoholiriippuvaisilla miehillä on 15% ja alkoholiriippuvaisilla naisilla on 13% alhaisempi todennäköisyys olla kokopäivätyössä. Huomioiden ilmeinen alkoholiriippuvuuden endogeenisuus, havaittiin että miehillä on 20-25% ja naisilla 40-50% alhaisempi todennäköisyys olla kokopäivätyössä

A note on the impact of hours worked on mortality in the OECD

In this note we investigate whether an increase in hours worked per employed person raises the total mortality rate in a sample of 23 OECD countries during 1960-1997. We use the same basic research design and data as Gerdtham & Ruhm (2002). This implies that the total mortality rate is modelled to depend on economic conditions, demographic characteristics, year effects, country effects, and country-specific time trends. We extend the analysis by allowing the mortality rate to depend on, in addition, the number of hours worked per employed individual. Surprisingly, we find that an increase in the number of hours worked actually has a negative and statistically significant effect on the total mortality rate, even when controlling for income. Although one possible explanation may be that fluctuations in hours of work in fact is, in this setting, more a measure of the capacity utilisation rate of the economy than a measure of how stressful work is for individuals who are actually working, more research on the topic is needed in order to find a plausible explanation for the observed phenomenon. – Mortality ; Business Cycles ; HealthTässä artikkelissa tutkitaan, onko työntekijäkohtaisten tehtyjen työtuntien kasvulla kuolleisuutta lisäävä vaikutus 23 OECD-maassa 1960-1997 välisenä aikana. Tarkastelussa Käytetään Gerdthamin ja Ruhmin (2002) kehittämää mallia, ja suurilta osin myös samaa aineistoa. Tämä tarkoittaa, että taloudellisen suhdannetilanteen, demografian, kiinteiden vuosi- ja maaefektien, sekä maakohtaisten aikatrendien oletetaan vaikuttavan kuolleisuuteen. Alkuperäistä mallia laajennetaan siten, että edellä mainittujen muuttujien lisäksi myös tehtyjen työtuntien vaikutus otetaan huomioon. Tuloksien mukaan kuolleisuus ei näytä kasvavan tehtyjen työtuntien myötä vaan kuolleisuus näyttää yllättäen laskevan tehtyjen työtuntien määrän kasvaessa. Tämä tulos pätee, vaikka tarkastelun kohteena olevien maiden tulotaso otetaan huomioon. Tutkimuksen tulos saattaa johtua siitä, että tehdyt työtunnit kuvaavat itse asiassa talouksien käyttöastetta enemmän kuin työn kuormittavuutta. Tämän havainnon selvittämiseksi tarvitaan kuitenkin lisää tutkimusta. – Kuolleisuus ; Suhdanteet ; Tervey

Abstaining from alcohol and labour market underperformance: Have we forgotten dry alcoholics?

Prior research on the relationship between alcohol consumption and labour market success has generally found that abstainers do worse on the labour market than moderately drinking individuals. Some authors have argued that these results are consistent with medical research finding that moderate alcohol consumption is associated with improved health, and that this improved health also carries over to improved labour market success. However, very seldom, if ever, has attention been paid to the fact that a part of the abstainers are ex-alcoholics, who have quit drinking owing to alcohol problems. In this paper we show, using the new Finnish “Health 2000” dataset, that the underperformance of abstainers in a labour market sense is almost entirely due to the fact that some abstainers are ex-drinkers who have been diagnosed with alcoholism. Finnish men who have never drunk alcohol are not doing worse than drinkers. – Alcoholism ; Abstinence ; Work probabilit

Does Finland suffer from brain drain?

This paper examines the trends in immigration to and emigration from Finland during the period 1987-2006. The focus is on the 'human capital content' of the migration flows, the key question being: Is Finland losing out in the international competition for highly educated individuals? International comparisons presented by the OECD give the impression that Finland perform very weakly in the global competition for talent, as the share of highlyskilled immigrants is very low. However, these comparisons are distorted by the lack of information with regard to the level of education of immigrants into Finland. It would be desirable that the Central Statistical Office could provide better information on this issue. The results of this paper indicate that Finland's emigrants are indeed better educated than its immigrants, and that brain-drain exists to a certain degree. However, the magnitude of the brain-drain phenomenon is not very large, and there is no statistical evidence of the welleducated to emigrate would have increased over time. Although Finland's immigrants are more poorly educated than the Finnish population at large, they are apparently better educated than immigrants to, for instance, Sweden or Denmark, owing to the disproportionately large share of immigrants from Estonia and Russia to Finland. Nevertheless, the labour market performance of Finnish immigrants is as bad as for immigrants in most Western European countries, i.e. their unemployment rate is about twice as high as that of the native population. This amounts to a serious failure of assimilation policies

Creative destruction and employee well-being

We examine the effects of establishment- and industry-level labor market turnover on employees’ job satisfaction and perceived job insecurity. Our linked employer-employee panel data contain both information on employees’ subjective well-being and register-based information on job and worker flows. The results show that job destruction and worker outflow measures reduce job satisfaction and, especially, perceived security. These effects are much weaker when the individual-specific fixed effects are taken into account. The evidence also reveals that the establishment-level job and worker flows do not translate into higher wages. These findings speak against the existence of compensating wage differentials for job uncertainty.job flows; worker flows; job satisfaction; perceived security; job instability

Alcohol Consumption and Sickness Absence: Evidence from Panel Data

This paper examines the relationship between alcohol consumption and sickness absence. We use regional panel data from Finland over the period 1993-2005. The data on individuals’ health that we are using originates from Health Behaviour and Health among the Finnish Population conducted by the National Public Health Institute. The results show that alcohol consumption is associated with sickness absence, and particularly so for men. Therefore, the earlier aggregate time-series evidence from Sweden is largely confirmed in a regional panel data setting.Alcohol consumption; sickness absence

Innovative Work Practices and Sickness Absence: What Does a Nationally Representative Employee Survey Tell?

The paper examines the effect of innovative work practices on the prevalence of sickness absence and accidents at work. We focus on several different aspects of workplace innovations (self-managed teams, information sharing, employer-provided training and incentive pay) along with the “bundles” of those practices. We use nationally representative individual-level data from the Finnish Quality of Work Life Survey from 2008. Using single equation models, we find that innovative work practices increase short-term sickness absence for blue-collar and lower white-collar employees. In two-equation models that treat innovative workplace practices as endogenous variables we do not find relationship between innovative work practices and sickness absence or accidents at work.innovative work practices; workplace innovation; sickness absence; accidents

Alcohol mortality, drinking behaviour, and business cycles: are slumps really dry seasons?

This paper explores the connection between alcohol mortality, drinking behaviour and macroeconomic fluctuations in Finland by using both aggregate and micro-level data during the past few decades. The results from the aggregate data reveal that an improvement in regional economic conditions measured by the employment-to-population rate produces a decrease in alcohol mortality. However, the great slump of the early 1990s is an exception to this pattern. During that particular episode, alcohol mortality did indeed decline, as there was an unprecedented collapse in economic activity. The results from the micro-data show that an increase in the employment-to-population rate and expansion in regional GDP produces an increase in alcohol consumption while having no effect on the probability of being a drinker. All in all, the Finnish evidence presented does not overwhelmingly support the conclusions reported for the USA, according to which temporary economic slowdowns are good for health. In contrast, at least alcohol mortality seems to increase in those bad times that are not exceptional economic crises like the one experienced in the early 1990s. However, there is evidence that alcohol consumption is strongly procyclical by its nature. This suggests that alcohol consumption and mortality may be delinked in the short-run business cycle context.alcohol mortality, drinking, business cycles

Does physical capacity explain the height premium?

The paper examines the role of physical capacity in the determination of the height premium by using the “Health 2000 in Finland” data that contain both self-reported information on the physical strenuousness of work, and information on muscle mass from medical examinations. Our results show that the height premium does not vary according to the physical strenuousness of work. We also find that muscle mass is not related to wages. Furthermore, we observe that the shortest men do physically very demanding work and the tallest do sedentary work, even after controlling for the effects of age and education.Height; Height premium; Body composition; Wages