News 29 Nov 2016

Eino H. Laurila national income medal awarded to Kari Alho and Paula Koistinen-Jokiniemi

The Eino H. Laurila national income medal for 2016 has been awarded to PhD Kari Alho and MSSc Paula Koistinen-Jokiniemi. The medals are granted in recognition of their active work in promoting the use of national accounts and knowledge about them.

The medals will be awarded at the House of Science and Letters in connection with the seminar of the Finnish Economic Association and the Finnish Society for Health Economics on 29 November 2015 at 2 pm.

Kari E. O. Alho, PhD in Economics, has worked at the Research Institute of the Finnish Economy as Researcher, Assistant Director, Research Director and Research Advisor and in the tasks of the forecasting group and research, as well as in research management. He is also Adjunct Professor at the University of Helsinki.

Alho has carried out research on the financial market, macroeconomy and economic policy, and on the solutions of Finland's integration policy in the EU, on the labour market and its agreement systems, and pay formation. In addition to this, he has conducted research on the international economy, such as EU integration, the EU's eastern enlargement and monetary union, the economic relations of Finland and neighbouring countries, environmental economy, and defence economy. A key research topic has been the analysis of economic policy in the open economy. Alho and his work groups have published several empirical and theory-based research reports and books. Recently, he has compiled computable general equilibrium models for different areas of the economy.

Paula Koistinen-Jokiniemi, Master of Social Sciences, has had a long career as an expert and developer of national accounts at Statistics Finland. During her career, she has fully familiarised herself with national accounts regarding both content and concepts, as well as practical compilation of national accounts. She is particularly well-versed in statistics on government finances and financial accounts. 

Ms Koistinen-Jokiniemi was in a key expert role when Finland's statistics on government finances were developed to comply with EU requirements. She was involved in planning and implementing the reporting on government deficit and debt. Ms Koistinen-Jokiniemi has taken actively part in international statistical cooperation, most recently on the production of an international guide on typology and measurement of global production.

The Eino H. Laurila national income medal is awarded in recognition of noteworthy work to advance national economy research and particularly the development and application of economic descriptive systems, and promote knowledge about them. A further aim of the medal is to nurture interaction between economic research and practical statistical work. Decisions about awarding of the medal are made by the Ekonomiska Samfundet i Finland, the Finnish Statistical Society, the Finnish Economic Association, Statistics Finland, and the Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation. The first medal was awarded to Professor Eino H. Laurila in 1993 for his extensive work on the development of Finnish national accounts.

Further information:
Olli Savela, Senior Statistician, Statistics Finland, +358 29 551 3316; email: firstname.lastname@stat.fi

Finnish Economic Association