The DMT classification of real and quaternionic lattice codes

In this paper we consider space-time codes where the code-words are restricted to either real or quaternion matrices. We prove two separate diversity-multiplexing gain trade-off (DMT) upper bounds for such codes and provide a criterion for a lattice code to achieve these upper bounds. We also point out that lattice codes based on Q-central division algebras satisfy this optimality criterion. As a corollary this result provides a DMT classification for all Q-central division algebra codes that are based on standard embeddings.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure. Conference paper submitted to the International Symposium on Information Theory 201

Employment effects of a payroll tax cut – Evidence from a regional tax subsidy experiment

The Finnish government implemented a temporary exemption from employer social insurance contributions for the employers that are located in high unemployment areas of the Northern Finland. The payroll tax exemption was designed as an experiment that aimed to evaluate employment effects of a regional payroll tax reduction. As a result of the experiment payroll taxes were reduced by 3 – 6 percentage points for three years beginning in January 2003. In this paper we evaluate the employment and wage effects of the regionally targeted payroll tax reduction. We compare the employment and wage changes in the target region to the employment and wage changes in a control region with a similar unemployment rate and industry structure than the target region. As finding an identical control region is not possible, we adopt a matching procedure by choosing, for each firm in the target region, a matched pair from the control region. We perform propensity score matching and use the estimated propensities as balancing scores to create a control group of firms that is similar to the treatment group in all the observable pre-treatment characteristics. We then estimate the effect of the payroll tax reduction using difference-in-differences estimators, essentially comparing employment and wage changes between the matched pairs after the start of the experiment. We report results from both nearest neighbour and kernel matched comparison groups. To enhance the transparency of the evaluation we have created the matched firm pairs from the plant database of Statistics Finland and designed and published the evaluation method before any data on employment or wage outcomes were available in December 2003. We will follow the employment change of the selected firms based on annual tax reports that will be available in March 2004. Detailed information on the wage responses will be added to the report in May 2004 based on the payroll data of the members of The Confederation of Finnish Industry and Employers and The Employers Federation of the Service Industries.

Union membership and the erosion of the Ghent system: Lessons from Finland

Union density declined in Finland by more than 10 percentage points in less than ten years. This paper analyses the reasons behind the decline, using micro data from the 1990s. According to our results, the changes in the composition of the labour force and the changes in the labour market explain about a quarter of this decline. The main reason for the decline appears to be the erosion of the Ghent system, due to the emergence of an independent UI fund that provides unemployment insurance without requiring union membership. Interestingly, we find evidence that the decline in the union density can be attributed to declining inclination of the cohorts born after the early 1960s to become union members.Ghent system, union membership, trade unions

The Effect of a Student Aid Reform on Graduation: A Duration Analysis

In this paper we evaluate the changes in the times-to-degree at the Finnish universities in the 1990s. In particular, we evaluate the effect of the 1992 student aid reform that was intended to shorten the duration of university studies. We find that the student aid reform had only a modest effect, and that this effect was limited to the fields with long median durations. Most of the decline in the observed times-to-degree can be explained by an increase in the unemployment rate that reduced student employment opportunities.Times-to-degree; university education; student aid; duration analysis

Unintended convergence – how Finnish unemployment reached the European level

Finnish unemployment rose in the early 1990s from 3% to 18% in just four years. It has since fallen back to the average European level, being 9.0% in January 2003. In this paper, we describe the shocks leading to this unforeseen increase in unemployment. We then discuss and research the role of labour market institutions in the adjustment process that has brought unemployment back to a ‘normal’ level. We argue that these institutions cannot be blamed for the increase in unemployment, but that more flexible institutions could have led to a more rapid fall in unemployment once the Finnish economy began to recover.economic crisis; labour market institutions; unemployment