Matti Pohjola and Jukka Jalava awarded Eino H. Laurila
national income medal

The Eino H. Laurila national income medal for 2007 has been granted to Professor Matti Pohjola and MPolSc Jukka Jalava. Pohjola and Jalava have co-operated actively in national and international economic research, and been initiators of improvements to the content and usability of national accounts.

As researcher, teacher and research director of economics, Professor Matti Pohjola, PhD, has based his work solidly on the system of national accounts and the data it generates. His studies have improved our understanding of topical economic phenomena. Pohjola's recent studies have included examinations of the impact of information and communications technology on productivity and economic growth. He has raised questions relating to statistics and national accounts the answering of which has encouraged further development of national accounting and statistics production. Pohjola defended his doctoral dissertation successfully at the University of Cambridge in 1981 and currently holds Professorship in Economics at the Helsinki School of Economics.

Jukka Jalava, MPolSc, is a new generation economist who has worked in close co-operation with Professor Pohjola. He has exploited the system of national accounts to analyse essential contributors to productivity and their impacts on economic growth. Jalava presently works at Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities.

The medals will be handed over to Matti Pohjola and Jukka Jalava at the beginning of a lecture of the Finnish Economic Association to be delivered at the House of Estates, Snellmaninkatu 9-11, Helsinki, Finland, at 4 pm on Wednesday, 24 October 2007.

The Eino H. Laurila national income medal is awarded as recognition of noteworthy work to advance the development and application of systems for describing the economy, and promote knowledge about them. A further aim of the medal is to foster interaction between economic research and practical work on the compilation of statistics. Decisions about awarding of the medal are made by the Ekonomiska Samfundet in Finland, the Finnish Economic Association, the Finnish Statistical Society, the Finnish Society for Economic Research, 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.

Inquiries: Mr Markku Suur-Kujala, Statistics Finland, tel. +358 9 1734 3427, E-mail: firstname.lastname@stat.fi