Equilibrium unemployment rates are creeping up on all Scandinavian countries bar Norway.
Data extracted on 10 Nov 2015 07:07 UTC (GMT) from OECD.Stat.
Equilibrium unemployment rates in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland, 1969 – 2017
13 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, unemployment Tags: Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden
Why are Scandinavians so thin? Still few overweight Japanese
08 Nov 2015 1 Comment
in health economics Tags: Denmark, economics of obesity, Finland, Japan, Norway, Scandinavia, Sweden
Generation Rent comes to Scandinavia in lockstep – real housing prices in #Finland, #Sweden & #Norway since 1975
17 Sep 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, urban economics Tags: Finland, Generation Rent, housing affordability, housing prices, land supply, land use planning, NIMBYs, Norway, Sweden, zoning
Source: International House Price Database – Dallas Fed
Note: The house price index series is an index constructed with nominal house price data. The real house price index is an index calculated by deflating the nominal house price series with a country’s personal consumption expenditure deflator.
% of unemployment lasting longer than 12 months in Scandinavia since 1976
16 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, business cycles, constitutional political economy, economic history, job search and matching, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, Public Choice, unemployment Tags: borders, deployment subsidies, economics of borders, equilibrium unemployment rate, Finland, labour market programs, long-term unemployment, maps, natural unemployment rate, Norway, Scandinavia, search and matching, Sweden, unemployment durations
As I recall, most unemployed have been unemployed longer than 12 months in Sweden have to go on a labour market program. When they returned to unemployment after the program, the clock starts again. They are deemed to be freshly unemployed rather than adding to the previous spell with an interlude on a make work program. This makes Swedish long-term unemployment data rather unintelligible.
Source: OECD StatExtract.
Finland was recovering from its worst depression since the 1930s and the early 1990s when its data on long-term unemployment started to be continuous. This makes Finnish unemployment data rather difficult to interpret. Norway’s data for the long-term unemployed goes up and down a bit too much to be trustworthy without a background policy narrative.
Union density rates in Scandinavia since 1960
15 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, labour economics, unions Tags: Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, union membership, union power, union wage premium
Union membership has been very high all the time in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland.
Source: OECD Stat Extract.
The impact of welfare states on life expectancy
07 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, fiscal policy, labour economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, poverty and inequality, welfare reform Tags: Denmark, Finland, life expectancies, Norway, Sweden, welfare state
New from @iealondon: Scandinavian success is not due to high taxes and welfare spending. iea.org.uk/in-the-media/p… http://t.co/QVH566KNtV—
IEA (@iealondon) July 07, 2015
Finland is the poster child for why the euro doesn’t work
24 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in business cycles, currency unions, economic growth, Euro crisis, global financial crisis (GFC), macroeconomics Tags: Euro land, Finland, recessions and recoveries, Sweden
Iceland went bankrupt in 2008
23 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in currency unions, economic growth, Euro crisis, fiscal policy, macroeconomics Tags: Euroland, Eurosclerosis, Finland, Iceland, sovereign default, The Netherlands
Finland and Holland have grown less than Iceland since 2007. Iceland went bankrupt in 2008. washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog… http://t.co/gBEbDUhgYS—
Matt O'Brien (@ObsoleteDogma) July 17, 2015
Relatively few work long hours in the Nordic countries!
30 Jun 2015 Leave a comment
in labour economics, labour supply Tags: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, labour demographics, Norway, Scandinavia, Sweden, taxation and the labour supply, welfare state
Now what was it that the Nordics had over New Zealand in education?
05 Jun 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of education, politics - New Zealand Tags: education spending, Finland, Iceland, Nordic countries, Norway, Scandinavia, Sweden, teacher pay
Scandinavian tax revenues as a % of GDP, 1965–2013
29 May 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, public economics, Sam Peltzman Tags: Denmark, Finland, growth of government, Norway, Sweden
Peltzman was right! Scandinavian growth in the size of government stopped in the early 1980s.
Figure 1: Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish tax revenues as a percentage of GDP, 1965–2013
Source: OECD StatExtract.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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