Efficiency and costs of payments: some new evidence from Finland

This paper deals with optimal payment systems. The issue boils down to how large are the costs of different payment media, which can be interpreted as a question of the efficiency of the means of payment. However, there are other qualifications related to the choice of payment media. Here, at least three issues can be distinguished. First is the question of optimal payment medium for each individual payment (size, location, EFTPOS etc.). This choice is not independent of the individual characteristics of the payer and payee. Secondly, there is the question of cost effectiveness of payments for different institutions and sectors. The final issue concerns the social optimum for each payment medium. These issues have been particularly controversial in the case of cash, which is still the dominant payment medium in most euro countries. Part of the controversy arises from the fact that the costs and benefits of different payment media affect different market participants in quite different ways, so that a possible social optimum might not correspond eg to the optima for different firms. The paper contains a short review of calculation methods and empirical results for a sample of countries. It also provides new evidence from Finland, which is to an extent one of the front-runners in payment technology and institutional design in payment systems. This shows up in relatively low overall costs of payments. Our estimate of total costs of payment media is 0.3 per cent of GDP, which is very low by international standards.payment media; cash; payment systems; costs of payments

USING THE METHOD OF NARRATIVE CHANGE ACCOUNTING IN THE RESEARCH OF A LARGE FOREST INDUSTRY COMPANY. POWER AND CHANGE IN FOCUS

The aim of the study was to analyze the use of power in a strategic change process within a large forest industry company. The organization in question had a total of 7 700 employees, 6–8 organizational levels, over 30 production units and a widespread international sales network.

Private Indebtedness and the Banking Crisis in Finland

In Finland the private sector borrowing started to rise rapidly in conjunction with the liberalization of capital movements and deregulation of the domestic financial sector during the second half of the 1980s. The financial deregulation coincided with and amplified an economic boom marked by favourable income expectations, loose fiscal policy associated with improved terms of trade and anticipated reduction in income tax rates. All these factors contributed to the overheating of the Finnish economy that finally turned into a severe recession in the beginning of 1990s. The reaction of households to financial deregulation in Finland was similar to that in the other Nordic countries. As in Norway and Sweden, household indebtedness started to rise in the mid-1980s, after the abolishment of lending rate regulations and prior savings requirements for housing loans. Measured by the ratio of household debt to annual disposable income, household indebtedness peaked in 1990 at more than 80 per cent of annual disposable income. Since then, it has fallen slightly. Debt financing in the corporate sector started to increase rapidly in conjunction with the liberalization of capital movements, which enabled firms also in the domestic sector to raise loans in foreign currencies. During the 1980s debt financing grew most in the real estate business, construction and services. Despite increased borrowing, the debt with respect to equity of Finnish firms did not rise significantly until 1990–91, because a large part of the debt growth was matched by increases in corporate earnings and equity values during the late 1980s. Recession turned the situation for the worse as corporate earnings and the market value of assets plummeted. High indebtedness and overcapacity especially in the domestic sector will require several years of adjusting.banking crisis; indebtedness

Bankruptcies, Indebtedness and the Credit Crunch

This paper deals with Finnish bankruptcies. It shows that bankruptcies are strongly related to the business cycle and that they are perhaps even more strongly related to indebtedness, real interest rates and asset prices. The importance of these financial factors probably increased when the financial markets were liberalized in the early 1980s. Although there is a lot of seasonal and cyclical variation in bankruptcies the long run level (especially when adjusted to the number of firms) is almost constant representing some sort of "a natural rate of bankruptcies". What makes bankruptcies so important is the fact that they directly affect production, employment and credit expansion. The credit crunch effect in particular is scrutinized in the paper.bankruptcies; indebtedness; credit crunch; business cycle

Kuljettajien direktiivinmukainen jatkokoulutus ja siihen liittyvä aineisto

Hankkeessa käsitellään ammattipätevyyskoulutusta sekä siihen liittyvää materiaalia. Ammattipätevyyskoulutuksesta on määrätty laissa kuorma- ja linja-autonkuljettajien ammattipätevyydestä 16.3.2007/273. Ammattipätevyyskoulutuksen tavoitteena on parantaa kuorma- ja linja-autonkuljettajien ammatillisia valmiuksia työtehtäviensä hoitamiseksi. Koulutuksessa käytettävä materiaali on erittäin tärkeä osa koulutusta ja luo pohjan mielenkiintoiselle koulutuspäivälle. Opiskelijaryhmää voidaan katsoa aikuisopiskelijoina. Kaikki jotka ammattipätevyyskoulutukseen osallistuvat ovat alansa ammattilaisia ja tehneet ammattikuljettajan töitä jo useita vuosia. Tämä tekee opettamisen ja materiaalin valmistamisen erittäin haasteelliseksi

Studies in time series analysis of consumption, asset prices and forecasting

Only abstract. Paper copies of master’s theses are listed in the Helka database (http://www.helsinki.fi/helka). Electronic copies of master’s theses are either available as open access or only on thesis terminals in the Helsinki University Library.Vain tiivistelmä. Sidottujen gradujen saatavuuden voit tarkistaa Helka-tietokannasta (http://www.helsinki.fi/helka). Digitaaliset gradut voivat olla luettavissa avoimesti verkossa tai rajoitetusti kirjaston opinnäytekioskeilla.Endast sammandrag. Inbundna avhandlingar kan sökas i Helka-databasen (http://www.helsinki.fi/helka). Elektroniska kopior av avhandlingar finns antingen öppet på nätet eller endast tillgängliga i bibliotekets avhandlingsterminaler.This collection of seven papers deals with three different areas of econometric applications. The papers apply techniques related to the analysis of unit roots and cointegration methods. The first paper deals with consumption theories and formulates an error-correction forecasting model for consumption. A single cointegration relationship is found between consumption, income and net wealth, which is in line with the permanent income hypothesis. The second paper studies the excess sensitivity of consumption to current disposable income. Estimating the coefficient with time-varying techniques, we notice a decline in the coefficient during the period of financial deregulation toward the end of the 1980s and a rise during the recession. Third paper takes a closer look at how useful consumer barometer variables can be in forecasting variables such as consumption and inflation. First paper on asset prices, is based on the theory of cointegration between house and stock prices, which asserts that real after-tax risk-adjusted returns on assets should coincide in the long run. This paper presents a model for house prices that uses stock prices as a leading indicator to improve the forecasting of housing prices. Another paper on asset prices considers cointegration between house prices and inflation, and finds eg that house prices adjust to consumer prices in the long run and that no excess real appreciation, apart from rental income, is derived from house ownership. The two last papers deal with bankruptcy forecasting and testing for nonlinearities and chaos. It is asserted that bankruptcies can be interpreted as error-correction between supply and demand. Many tests have been developed to study the presence of nonlinearities in economic series. The results of testing unambiguously support that there are strong nonlinearities in economic data, but the evidence for chaos is weak

Macroeconomy and Consumer Sentiment: Performance of the Finnish Consumer Barometer after Ten Years

The Finnish Consumer Barometer was introduced in autumn 1987. Data were first collected twice a year and from August 1991 until September 1995 quarterly. After Finland joined the European Union in 1995, the survey was adopted as one member of the Harmonised Consumer Survey of the European Communities. Since October 1995, data have been collected monthly. Performance of the Consumer Barometer has already been evaluated by means of descriptive studies (see Djerf 1990). As the survey matures, it becomes feasible to make a more thorough study on the usefulness of the survey. Here we are, for example, interested in investigating how consumers were able to predict the long-lasting recession of our economy. The consumer confidence index and the five questions used for calculating it are compared to various components of Finnish macroeconomic time series. Additionally, we analyse the coincidence of other common measures (unemployment expectations, inflation expectations, etc.) as well as other, less frequently studied indicators such as the willingness to save and borrow with their possible counterparts in the real economy. It is important to evaluate whether consumer assessments about different economic questions are useful in predicting various macroeconomic variables i.e. we look for the additional information contained in barometer answers. We end by considering the usefulness of various indicators for specific macroeconomic behavioural equations.consumer barometer; economic forecasting; causality testing

House Prices and Inflation: A Cointegration Analysis for Finland and Sweden

Given the emphasis on price stability in monetary policy, the concern caused by recent rapid increases in housing prices are understandable. It is suspected that such rises may provide early indication of mounting inflationary pressure. The purpose of this paper is to formulate and estimate an error-correction system model for housing prices and inflation for forecasting purposes. By using the estimated cointegrating vector, we also get an estimate of the equilibrium level for house prices that might be helpful in analysing the current situation in the housing market and the stance for monetary policy. Housing prices typically exhibit large cycles, and they are thus predictable to some extent. Volatility is caused by the fact that the supply of houses does not react perfectly to changes in housing demand. However, housing prices and inflation tend to have similar growth rates over the long run. In other words, houses provide a good inflation shelter, but in the long run, the real return to is equal to the explicit or implicit rental income derived from the owning of houses. The estimation results also show that the changes in the general price level are transmitted into house prices rather quickly, but inflation is surprisingly insensitive to housing prices. The equilibrium relationship between housing prices and consumer prices is also affected in the short run by variables such as interest rates, wage rates and the unemployment rate.house prices; inflation; cointegration

Desulfovibrio Bacteria Are Associated With Parkinson's Disease

Parkinson's disease (PD) is the most prevalent movement disorder known and predominantly affects the elderly. It is a progressive neurodegenerative disease wherein alpha-synuclein, a neuronal protein, aggregates to form toxic structures in nerve cells. The cause of Parkinson's disease (PD) remains unknown. Intestinal dysfunction and changes in the gut microbiota, common symptoms of PD, are evidently linked to the pathogenesis of PD. Although a multitude of studies have investigated microbial etiologies of PD, the microbial role in disease progression remains unclear. Here, we show that Gram-negative sulfate-reducing bacteria of the genus Desulfovibrio may play a potential role in the development of PD. Conventional and quantitative real-time PCR analysis of feces from twenty PD patients and twenty healthy controls revealed that all PD patients harbored Desulfovibrio bacteria in their gut microbiota and these bacteria were present at higher levels in PD patients than in healthy controls. Additionally, the concentration of Desulfovibrio species correlated with the severity of PD. Desulfovibrio bacteria produce hydrogen sulfide and lipopolysaccharide, and several strains synthesize magnetite, all of which likely induce the oligomerization and aggregation of alpha-synuclein protein. The substances originating from Desulfovibrio bacteria likely take part in pathogenesis of PD. These findings may open new avenues for the treatment of PD and the identification of people at risk for developing PD.Peer reviewe