Comments on: Finland Productivity Levels: An international success story

By: roman

roman — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 18:29:04 +0000

Clint, wouldn’t it be easier to ask “what is common to countries that have high productivity levels?” instead?

It is not the rice porridge wrapped in rye crust then

But to start with something, there are some studies trying linking corruption and productivity. They seem to detect both directions of correlations!.

By: Clint

Clint — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 07:47:20 +0000

Roman, I’m not sure if it would be easier, but I think your questions is probably a better one.

The only problem is that I would then most likely have to scrap my last four hypotheses, and they are my favorite ones.

By: Matti

Matti — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 09:20:21 +0000

I think it’s the rice porridge wrapped in rye crust.

By: roman

roman — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 10:20:19 +0000

I had a second thought about it too. Now I think it’s the fact that: a man live and marry a Finnish woman. (I stress the right-wards direction of the fact, i.e. to live and marry with a Finnish woman. The left-ward direction, i.e. a Finnish woman live and marry … is not that important for the question Clint asks :)). There is no other country in the world that this would happen so frequently! And thus the productivity!

By: roman

roman — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 10:20:55 +0000

correction: live and/or marry…

By: Clint

Clint — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 11:05:28 +0000

Also, last night we decided to end the rainy cold day with a warm, relaxing Finnish sauna.
I was surprised (and pleased) that more communication occurred and decisions were made while relaxing in there than the rest of my week here so far.
The frequency and utilization of the Finnish sauna must surely also be another important key to productivity!

By: Clint

Clint — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 20:18:44 +0000

I just attended a good portion of the Finland - China Cooperation Seminar (which was very good, by the way), and I was impressed by one more thing which really does help productivity which I forgot to list as one of the options.
That is the university system, including: free education in Finland (all the way through graduate degrees), and the strong research-based participation between universities and businesses (e.g. the Science Parks). Having a strong base of research-intensive universities is probably one of the best things a country can do.

By: VeNicia

VeNicia — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 07:00:27 +0000

Did you know Finland is also high ranking in education scores? I read an article on it a while ago about PISA (Program for International Student Assessment). Here are some of the things I found interesting:

Across-the-board quality characterized the study’s top-scoring nations. No. 1 performers Finland, Japan and Korea, for example, were also among the countries with the narrowest gap between the highest and lowest performers. Korea was the nation with the smallest variation, indicating that all its schools were doing well in educating their students.
The study, however, didn’t pretend to have easy answers to why some nations’ students performed better. (multiple variables)
One factor the study did find: Students tended to do worse in nations in which there was a high degree of segregation along socioeconomic lines. In the US, the study found a bigger difference among students from different schools and socioeconomic groups than in most other countries. Yet those same differences didn’t affect some other nations’ performances. (Statistics showed social background didn’t really effect Finland’s scores.)
U.S. scores also registered performance gaps along racial and ethnic lines. PISA’s study found that white and “other” 15-year-olds (including Asians, American Indians/Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians or Pacific Islanders, and multiracial students) outperformed Black and Hispanic students in reading, mathematics and science literacy.

See the rankings in math, science and literacy:
http://www.siteselection.com/ssinsider/snapshot/sf011210.htm

(uh…just ignore the US bashing and skip to the yellow boxes at the bottom…heheh)

By: Clint

Clint — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 00:07:57 +0000

That is cool to know. Thanks VeNicia.

I was in Finland on the mid-summers festival (when people stay up all night in the forest - usually drinking and enjoying the sauna until the sun goes down but it doesn’t go dark), and I developed a new theory for Finland’s productivity levels.

I found it interesting that the big news after the festival each year is how many people had drowned in the lakes (from drinking and fishing or swimming) - averaging about 10 per year since the 70s.

So my thought was that through natural selection, the most productive ones somehow find a way to survive the holiday season.

Over the whole span of the year, however, drownings have decreased from 400 per year to 200 per year, thanks to a public service educational effort.