News 8 Apr 2020

Statistics Finland offers data and competence to situation room established by Helsinki GSE

The Helsinki Graduate School of Economics GSE has established a situation room focused on analysing the economic situation together with VATT Institute for Economic Research and Statistics Finland. The aim is to provide a view of economic development during the coronavirus crisis with the help of the situation room analyses.

The situation room monitors and analyses Finland’s economic situation on a faster and more intensive schedule than regular economic monitoring. Extensive central government data provide the background for the analyses. The aim is also to gain access to data generated in connection with private sector activities in the near future.

With the help of the data materials, a group of leading Finnish economists will compile analyses on the situation of the Finnish economy, enterprises and households during different stages of the crisis. In practice, daily and weekly reports are generated as a result of the analysis and these are utilised to form a close to real-time view of the development of the Finnish economy. The results of the analyses will be published on the Helsinki GSE website.

Statistics Finland’s experts process and combine data to be used by researchers

The analysis needs to be based on extensive data materials generated in public administration, such as the Incomes Register and the activity of Business Finland, as well as Statistics Finland’s statistics production data. For example, the Finnish Tax Administration, the Social Insurance Institution of Finland and the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment deliver data to Statistics Finland, which are then processed by Statistics Finland’s experts so that the researchers can utilise the data in a way that secures the anonymity of people and enterprises.

In practice, Statistics Finland’s experts process the data and remove so-called direct unique identifiers. After the processing, the data are transferred to Statistics Finland’s data secure environment where the researchers can use them through remote access. New data are processed and released to the researchers daily.

“During the ongoing pandemic, the need for information in society is immense. We want to bring competence related to data processing and data in our possession to society in a more versatile way than before also in crisis situations,” says Statistics Finland's Director General Marjo Bruun.

Further information:
Director General Marjo Bruun, firstname.lastname@stat.fi