News

Helsinki GSE establishes an economic situation room - The aim is to support fast decision making amid the coronavirus crisis

The project highlights Finland as a solid example of effective and timely policy decisions due to availability of data.
BIZ public artworks (photo: Mikko Raskinen)

The Helsinki Graduate School of Economics (Helsinki GSE) has established a situation room to support ministries and other public authorities in economic policy-making during the coronavirus crisis. The Helsinki GSE situation room aims to provide decision-makers with a close to real-time view on developments in the corporate sector, the labor market, and society in general.

The situation room consists of leading economists from Helsinki GSE, VATT Institute for Economic Research, as well as members from several public authorities. It utilises data from relevant public and private sources and produces regular reports for policymakers. The data is collected and organised in close cooperation with Statistics Finland, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, Bank of Finland, Finnish Tax Administration, The Social Insurance Institution of Finland Kela and other institutions.

‘Finland is in an extraordinarily good position to make data-based policy decisions since we have an abundance of high-quality registry data available. Taking advantage of this data greatly improves the ability to make any appropriate policy decisions,’ says Otto Toivanen, leader of the situation room, and academic director of Helsinki GSE.

‘The Finnish registry data spans several decades and enables linking of different data sources at, e.g. individual, firm or family level in a way that is not possible in many other countries. The experiences of the situation room can also be valuable when considering how to incorporate more real-time micro-level economic data in regular economic policymaking.’

In addition to data-driven analysis, Helsinki GSE researchers are organising regular discussions with civil servants and decision-makers on general policy guidelines for both during and after the crisis. The situation room also cooperates closely with a group of Finnish experts recently appointed by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment and the Ministry of Finance to prepare an assessment of the long-term economic impact of the coronavirus crisis.

‘The coronavirus crisis poses difficult challenges for economic policymakers, as far-reaching decisions need to be made at a fast pace, in a new and quickly changing environment. We are happy to be able to help in finding answers to those challenges,’ says Erkki Liikanen, chair of Helsinki GSE board.

More information on the Situation Room and its latest public reports can be found on the Helsinki GSE website.

Helsinki Graduate School of Economics is a joint teaching and research unit in economics of Aalto University, University of Helsinki and Hanken School of Economics.

Additional information:

Otto Toivanen
Aalto University, Professor
Helsinki GSE, Academic Director
+358 50 353 7651
[email protected]

https://www.helsinkigse.fi/

Read also:

Working group to assess the economic impact of the coronavirus crisis and explore ways to return to a sustainable growth path.
https://vm.fi/en/article/-/asset_publisher/1410877/selvitysryhma-arvioi-koronakriisin-taloudellisia-vaikutuksia-ja-tieta-takaisin-kestavan-kasvun-uralle

  • Published:
  • Updated:

Read more news

From left: Taras Redchuk, Chris Hayes, Aakeel Wagay, Ada Pajari, Dan Noel, Eveliny Nery and Jarno Mäkelä. Photo: Mikko Raskinen.
Appointments Published:

‘Off to a flying start’ – a new research team explores bacteria that thrive in extreme conditions

Jarno Mäkelä joined Aalto’s Department of Neuroscience and Medical Engineering as Assistant Professor of Biophysics in early September, together with research fellow Taras Redchuk, postdoctoral researchers Dan Noel, Eveliny Nery, doctoral researchers Ada Pajari and Aakeel Wagay, and research assistant Chris Hayes. They were accompanied by equipment, funding from the Academy of Finland and an ERC Starting Grant from the European Research Council.
Aalto Industrial Internet Campus
Cooperation, Research & Art Published:

The physical and digital worlds of production and internal logistics meet in a multidisciplinary TwinFlow project

Researchers from Aalto University and the University of Tampere are collaborating with companies to accelerate the data-driven business in the manufacturing industry. The joint three-year project is funded by Business Finland.
Eloi Moliner IWAENC-tapahtumassa.
Awards and Recognition Published:

Best Student Paper Award for Eloi Moliner – again!

The award-winning paper shows how speech recordings can be improved by removing the room reverberation effect using unsupervised machine learning
Map screenshot from mappingmanuscriptmigrations.org web service by Semantic Computing Research group at Aalto University
Research & Art Published:

Aalto computer scientists in SEMANTiCS 2024

Scientists from the Department of Computer Science in the International Conference on Semantic Systems.