Kansallisen konsensuskulttuurin jäljillä : Globalisaatioajan Suomi Helsingin Sanomissa

The dissertation analyzes Finnish consensual culture in public discussion and journalism in Helsingin Sanomat (HS). The consensual Finnish political culture has evolved and persisted over a long period of time and it has been affected by historical circumstances as well as the dynamics of political and journalistic structures and actors. A historical chronology is drawn in the study regarding the nature and development of consensus culture in 20th century Finland. This political culture is traced by looking at public discussion on globalization at the turn of the millennium. Globalization as a concept has been contested and various societal actors have given different meanings to it. This research looks at how the globalization discussion in HS during the years 1992-2004 constructs consensus. Helsingin Sanomat (and its predecessor Päivälehti) has been an important actor in Finnish journalism and the public sphere almost since its founding 120 years ago. The history of the paper is tightly connected to Finland s general political history and history of the public sphere. Moreover, the paper s connections to the societal elite have always been close. The central question in this research was to see how the globalization discussion in HS evolved in relation to consensus as well as legitimate controversies. As a result it is stated that the globalization question has clearly divided the Finnish societal actors. The most powerful societal elites (government, most civil servants, corporate sector) had a profile of being pro globalization. They communicated their globalization strategy as a national, unified way of thinking. Other elites which have been losing their influence (the president, labor union, part of members of parliament), as well as civil society actors tried to bring forward conflicting views in relation to globalization. The paper did give some room to these elements, but on the other hand it also tried to keep up the consensual discussion culture especially in the editorial section. In line with its traditions Helsingin Sanomat strived to create national unity. At the same time it did not give adequate attention to the changes brought about by globalization to the positions and roles of various elites and civil society actors. In this discussion HS seemed more like a medium of the state than as a critical and independent actor. Journalism has an important role in upholding and also reviving the Finnish political culture and public discussion. From this point of view it is problematic if the area of so called legitimate controversy in broad societal questions like globalization becomes very limited. As the Finnish elites are small and there is no considerable competition between them, journalism should actively bring up controversial issues. This task becomes complicated, however, if the elite circles are closed up and no initiatives come from their ranks. Political decision making as well as democracy can suffer, if issues are not brought to the public agenda.

Järjestö jäänmurtajana : Suomen merimiesunioni työmarkkinaosapuolena ja suomalaisten laivatyöntekijöiden turvallisuuden vankentajana 1944-1980

Like an Icebreaker: The Finnish Seamen s Union as collective bargaining maverick and champion of sailors social safety 1944-1980. The Finnish Seamen's Union (FSU), which was established on a national basis in 1920, was one of the first Finnish trade unions to succeed in collective bargaining. In the early 1930s, the gains made in the late 1920s were lost, due to politically based internal rivalries, the Great Depression, and a disastrous strike. Unexpectedly the FSU survived and went on promoting the well-being of its members even during World War II. After the war the FSU was in an exceptionally favorable position to exploit the introduction of coordinated capitalism, which was based on social partnership between unions, employers and government. Torpedoes, mines and confiscations had caused severe losses to the Finnish merchant marine. Both ship-owners and government alike understood the crucial importance of using the remaining national shipping capacity effectively. The FSU could no longer be crushed, and so, in 1945, the union was allowed to turn all ocean-going Finnish ships into closed shops. The FSU also had another source of power. After the sailors of the Finnish icebreaker fleet also joined its ranks, the FSU could, in effect, block Finnish foreign trade in wintertime. From the late 1940s to the 1960s the union started and won numerous icebreaker strikes. Finnish seamen were thus granted special pension rights, reductions on income taxes and import duties, and other social privileges. The FSU could neither be controlled by union federations nor intimidated by employers or governments. The successful union and its tactically clever chairperson, Niilo Välläri, were continuously but erroneously accused of syndicalism. Välläri did not aim for socialism but wanted the Finnish seamen to get all the social benefits that capitalism could possibly offer. Välläri s policy was successfully followed by the FSU until the late 1980s when Finnish ship-owners were allowed to flag their vessels outside the national registry. Since then the FSU has been on the defensive and has yielded to pay cuts. The FSU members have not lost their social benefits, but they are under constant fear of losing their jobs to cheap foreign labor.

Informational efficiency of the European Union emission allowance market

This thesis studies the informational efficiency of the European Union emission allowance (EUA) market. In an efficient market, the market price is unpredictable and profits above average are impossible in the long run. The main research problem is does the EUA price follow a random walk. The method is an econometric analysis of the price series, which includes an autocorrelation coefficient test and a variance ratio test. The results reveal that the price series is autocorrelated and therefore a nonrandom walk. In order to find out the extent of predictability, the price series is modelled with an autoregressive model. The conclusion is that the EUA price is autocorrelated only to a small degree and that the predictability cannot be used to make extra profits. The EUA market is therefore considered informationally efficient, although the price series does not fulfill the requirements of a random walk. A market review supports the conclusion, but it is clear that the maturing of the market is still in process.

Posted Workers and Free Movement of Services in the European Union – the Impact on National Employment and Immigration Law

This thesis examines posting of workers within the free movement of services in the European Union. The emphasis is on the case law of the European Court of Justice and in the role it has played in the liberalisation of the service sector in respect of posting of workers. The case law is examined from two different viewpoints: firstly, that of employment law and secondly, immigration law. The aim is to find out how active a role the Court has taken with regard these two fields of law and what are the implications of the Court’s judgments for the regulation on a national level. The first part of the thesis provides a general review of the Community law principles governing the freedom to provide services in the EU. The second part presents the Posted Workers’ Directive and the case law of the European Court of Justice before and after the enactment of the Directive from the viewpoint of employment law. Special attention is paid to a recent judgment in which the Court has taken a restrictive position with regard to a trade union’s right to take collective action against a service provider established in another Member State. The third part of the thesis concentrates, firstly, on the legal status of non-EU nationals lawfully resident in the EU. Secondly, it looks into the question of how the Court’s case law has affected the possibilities to use non-EU nationals as posted workers within the freedom to provide services. The final chapter includes a critical analysis of the Court’s case law on posted workers. The judgments of the European Court of Justice are the principal source of law for this thesis. In the primary legislation the focus is on Articles 49 EC and 50 EC that lay down the rules concerning the free movement of services. Within the secondary legislation, the present work principally concentrates on the Posted Workers’ Directive. It also examines proposals of the European Commission and directives that have been adopted in the field of immigration. The conclusions of the case study are twofold: while in the field of employment law, the European Court of Justice has based its judgments on a very literal interpretation of the Posted Workers’ Directive, in the field of immigration its conclusions have been much more innovative. In both fields of regulation the Court’s judgments have far-reaching implications for the rules concerning posting of workers leaving very little discretion for the Member States’ authorities.

E. G. Gulinin ekumeeninen työ ja ajattelu

This study explores ecumenical activity of professor and bishop E. G. Gulin (1893 1975). Gulin was one of the key figures in the Finland s Evangelical Lutheran Church during the twentieth century. He was also one of the leading persons who imported ecumenical influences from abroad. However, unlike other churches, the Church of Finland did not recognise his importance. For example, in the 1950s Gulin was seen by the Anglicans as a future archbishop for the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. Gulin s career as an ecumenist can be divided to three parts. Between 1917 and 1929, Gulin learned ecumenical working methods in Finland s World Student Christian Federation. He had a background in the revivalist movement, and his parents supported him in his studies. The Evangelical Lutheran Church did not originally play a major role for Gulin, although he was a member. Between 1930 and 1944, Gulin had more and more responsibility as a leading ecumenist in Finland. He became a member of Finland s ecumenical board, Yleiskirkollinen toimikunta. During the Second World War Gulin tried to solicit assistance for Finland s war effort at theological conferences, where Finnish theologians often discussed cooperation among Christians. A third period started in 1945, when Gulin became the bishop of Tampere. His new status in the Evangelical Lutheran Church placed him in a challenging position in ecumenical questions. He had responsibility for inter-church aid in Finland. He also participated in the World Council of Churches (WCC) assemblies in Evanston in 1954 and in New Delhi in 1961. Gulin s role was quite insignificant in those meetings. Closely related to Gulin s texts about ecumenism is kokemus, experience. Gulin wrote about his ecumenical experience or ekumeeninen kokemus. He believed that it was vital for the churches to appreciate their own experiences, since experience was the basis for further development. Yet Gulin mentioned very little about Christian dogma. The main reason seems to have been that he did not believe that a union between churches could be built on dogma.

The Soviet Union, Finland and the Cold War : The Finnish Card in Soviet Foreign Policy, 1956-1959

From the Soviet point of view the actual substance of Soviet-Finnish relations in the second half of 1950s clearly differed from the contemporary and later public image, based on friendship and confidence rhetoric. As the polarization between the right and the left became more underlined in Finland in the latter half of the 1950s, the criticism towards the Soviet Union became stronger, and the USSR feared that this development would have influence on Finnish foreign policy. From the Soviet point of view, the security commitments of FCMA-treaty needed additional guarantees through control of Finnish domestic politics and economic relations, especially during international crises. In relation to Scandinavia, Finland was, from the Soviet point of view, the model country of friendship or neutrality policy. The influence of the Second Berlin Crisis or the Soviet-Finnish Night Frost Crisis in 1958-1959 to Soviet policy towards Scandinavia needs to be observed from this point of view. The Soviet Union used Finland as a tool, in agreement with Finnish highest political leadership, for weakening of the NATO membership of Norway and Denmark, and for maintaining Swedish non-alliance. The Finnish interest to EFTA membership in the summer of 1959, at the same time with the Scandinavian countries, seems to have caused a panic reaction in the USSR, as the Soviets feared that these economic arrangements would reverse the political advantages the country had received in Finland after the Night Frost Crisis. Together with history of events, this study observes the interaction of practical interests and ideologies, both in individuals and in decision-making organizations. The necessary social and ideological reforms in the Soviet Union after 1956 had influence both on the legitimacy of the regime, and led to contradictions in the argumentation of Soviet foreign policy. This was observed both in the own camp as well as in the West. Also, in Finland a breakthrough took place in the late 1950's: as the so-called counter reaction lost to the K-line, "a special relationship" developed with the Soviet Union. As a consequence of the Night Frost Crisis the Soviet relationship became a factor decisively defining the limits of domestic politics in Finland, a part of Finnish domestic political argumentation. Understood from this basis, finlandization is not, even from the viewpoint of international relations, a special case, but a domestic political culture formed by the relationship between a dominant state, a superpower, and a subordinate state, Finland.

Essays on Labor Market Frictions, Technological Change and Macroeconomic Fluctuations

The dissertation consists of an introductory chapter and three essays that apply search-matching theory to study the interaction of labor market frictions, technological change and macroeconomic fluctuations. The first essay studies the impact of capital-embodied growth on equilibrium unemployment by extending a vintage capital/search model to incorporate vintage human capital. In addition to the capital obsolescence (or creative destruction) effect that tends to raise unemployment, vintage human capital introduces a skill obsolescence effect of faster growth that has the opposite sign. Faster skill obsolescence reduces the value of unemployment, hence wages and leads to more job creation and less job destruction, unambiguously reducing unemployment. The second essay studies the effect of skill biased technological change on skill mismatch and the allocation of workers and firms in the labor market. By allowing workers to invest in education, we extend a matching model with two-sided heterogeneity to incorporate an endogenous distribution of high and low skill workers. We consider various possibilities for the cost of acquiring skills and show that while unemployment increases in most scenarios, the effect on the distribution of vacancy and worker types varies according to the structure of skill costs. When the model is extended to incorporate endogenous labor market participation, we show that the unemployment rate becomes less informative of the state of the labor market as the participation margin absorbs employment effects. The third essay studies the effects of labor taxes on equilibrium labor market outcomes and macroeconomic dynamics in a New Keynesian model with matching frictions. Three policy instruments are considered: a marginal tax and a tax subsidy to produce tax progression schemes, and a replacement ratio to account for variability in outside options. In equilibrium, the marginal tax rate and replacement ratio dampen economic activity whereas tax subsidies boost the economy. The marginal tax rate and replacement ratio amplify shock responses whereas employment subsidies weaken them. The tax instruments affect the degree to which the wage absorbs shocks. We show that increasing tax progression when taxation is initially progressive is harmful for steady state employment and output, and amplifies the sensitivity of macroeconomic variables to shocks. When taxation is initially proportional, increasing progression is beneficial for output and employment and dampens shock responses.

European Union and the developing nations' external debt : EU-15's debt policy, 1960–2008

This Master's Thesis defines the debt policy of the current European Union Member States towards the developing nations. Since no official policy for debt exists in the EU, it is defined to include debt practices (loans and debt relief in development cooperation) and debt within the EU development policy framework. This study (1) describes how the issue of external debt appears in the development policy framework, (2) compares EU Member States' given loans and debt relief to grants for the developing nations (1960s to the 2000s), and (3) measures the current orientation in ODA of each EU Member State between grant aid and loan aid using the Grant-Loan Index (GLI). Theoretical aspects include reasons for selecting between loans (Bouchet 1987) and grants (Odedokun 2004, O'Brien and Williams 2007), policy context of the EU (Van Reisen 2007) and the meaning of external debt in the set-up between the North and the South. In terms of history, the events and impact of the colonial period (where loans have originated) are overviewed and compared in light of today's policies. Development assistance statistics are derived from the OECD DAC statistics portal and EU development policy framework documents from the EU portal. Methodologically, the structure of this study is from policy analysis (Barrien 1999, Hill 2008, Berndtson 2008), but it has been modified to fit the needs of studying a non-official policy. EU Member States are divided into three groups by Carbone (2007a), the Big-3, Northern and Southern donors, based on common development assistance characteristics. The Grant-Loan Index is used to compare Carbone's model, which measures quality of aid, to the GLI measuring the structure of aid. Results indicate that EU- 15 countries (active in debt practices) differ in terms of timing, stability and equality of debt practices in the long-term (1960s to the 2000s). In terms of current practices, (2000-2008), it is noted that there lies a disparity between the actual practices and the way in which external debt is represented in the development policy framework, although debt practices form a relevant portion of total ODA practices for many EU-15 Member States, the issue itself plays a minor role in development policy documents. Carbone’s group division applies well to the Grant – Loan Index’s results, indicating that countries with similar development policy behaviour have similarities in debt policy behaviour, with one exception: Greece. On the basis of this study, it is concluded that EU development policy framework content in terms of external debt and debt practices are not congruent. The understanding of this disparity between the policy outline and differences in long-term practices is relevant in both, reaching the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, and in the actual process of developing development aid.

Empirical Studies on Labor Market Matching (summary section only)

This thesis analyzes how matching takes place at the Finnish labor market from three different angles. The Finnish labor market has undergone severe structural changes following the economic crisis in the early 1990s. The labor market has had problems adjusting from these changes and hence a high and persistent unemployment has followed. In this thesis I analyze if matching problems, and in particular if changes in matching, can explain some of this persistence. The thesis consists of three essays. In the first essay Finnish Evidence of Changes in the Labor Market Matching Process the matching process at the Finnish labor market is analyzed. The key finding is that the matching process has changed thoroughly between the booming 1980s and the post-crisis period. The importance of the number of unemployed, and in particular long-term unemployed, for the matching process has vanished. More unemployed do not increase matching as theory predicts but rather the opposite. In the second essay, The Aggregate Matching Function and Directed Search -Finnish Evidence, stock-flow matching as a potential micro foundation of the aggregate matching function is studied. In the essay I show that newly unemployed match mainly with the stock of vacancies while longer term unemployed match with the inflow of vacancies. When aggregating I still find evidence of the traditional aggregate matching function. This could explain the huge support the aggregate matching function has received despite its odd randomness assumption. The third essay, How do Registered Job Seekers really match? -Finnish occupational level Evidence, studies matching for nine occupational groups and finds that very different matching problems exist for different occupations. In this essay also misspecification stemming from non-corresponding variables is dealt with through the introduction of a completely new set of variables. The new outflow measure used is vacancies filled with registered job seekers and it is matched by the supply side measure registered job seekers.

Does Uncertainty Affect Investment and Labor Demand?

This paper analyzes the effect of uncertainty on investment and labor demand for Finnish firms during the time period 1987 – 2000. Utilizing a stock return based measure of uncertainty decomposed into systematic and idiosyncratic components, the results reveal that idiosyncratic uncertainty significantly reduces both investment and labor demand. Idiosyncratic uncertainty seems to influence investment in the current period, whereas the depressing effect on labor demand appears with a one-year lag. The results provide support that the depressing effect of idiosyncratic uncertainty on investment is stronger for small firms in comparison to large firms. Some evidence is reported regarding differential effects of uncertainty on labor demand conditional on firm characteristics. Most importantly, the depressing effect of lagged idiosyncratic uncertainty on labor demand tends to be stronger for diversified firms compared with focused firms.

Examining effectiveness of an immigrant labor market integration intervention. The role of acculturation, discrimination, self-efficacy, outcome expectances, action and coping planning.

The designing of effective intervention tools to improve immigrants’ labor market integration remains an important topic in contemporary Western societies. This study examines whether and how a new intervention tool, Working Life Certificate (WLC), helps unemployed immigrants to find employment and strengthen their belief of their vocational skills. The study is based on quantitative longitudinal survey data from 174 unemployed immigrants of various origins who participated in the pilot phase of WLC examinations in 2009. Surveys were administered in three waves: before the test, right after it, and three months later. Although it is often argued that the unemployment among immigrants is due either to their lack of skills and cultural differences or to discrimination in recruitment, scholars within social psychology of behavior change argue that the best way of helping people to achieve their goals (e.g. finding employment) is to build up their sense of self-efficacy, alter their outcome expectances in a more positive direction or to help them to construct more detailed action and coping plans. This study aims to shed light on the role of these concepts in immigrants’ labor market integration. The results support the theories of behavior change moderately. Having positive expectances regarding the outcomes of various job search behaviors was found to predict employment in the future. Together with action and coping planning it also predicted increase in job search behavior. The intervention, WLC, was able to affect participants’ self-efficacy, but contrary to expectations, self-efficacy was found not to be related to either job search behavior or future labor market status. Also, perceived discrimination did not explain problems in finding employment, but hints of subtle or structural discrimination were found. Adoption of Finnish work culture together with strong family culture was found to predict future employment. Hence, in this thesis I argue that awarding people diplomas should be preferred in immigrant integration training as it strengthens people’s sense of self-efficacy. Instead of teaching new information, more attention should be directed at changing people’s outcome expectances in a more positive direction and helping them to construct detailed plans on how to achieve their goals.