Data Room
The Data Room is an independent unit of VATT Institute for Economic Research that supports knowledge-based decision-making. The Data Room produces up-to-date reports that make use of register data to support decision-making and to assess the impacts of political solutions. The operation of the internationally unique Data Room started as a pilot project in 2023 and has since been permanently established.
The Data Room works in close cooperation with Statistics Finland and the Helsinki Graduate School of Economics GSE. Statistics Finland collects data for the needs of the Data Room, and Helsinki GSE supports the Data Room with academic research expertise and guidance. Other researchers from VATT, other research institutes, universities, ministries and other government agencies also participate in Data Room projects. Its activities are funded by the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Education and Culture.
The Data Room primarily responds to the current information needs of the Government by combining unit-level register data across administrative branches. Assignment priorities are supported by a cross-administrative steering group appointed by the Ministry of Finance. Data are needed at different stages of the legislative drafting and budget processes, such as for government proposals. Most assignments take a few months, depending on the time required to obtain additional material.
Most of the Data Room analyses and reports are submitted directly to the ministries. The Data Room also publishes some of its own reports. Under certain conditions, participants of the assignments can also conduct academic research and produce theses in the Data Room to further the understanding of the topic.
The Data Room's analysis activities are divided into three thematic groups. The Business group has studied, for example, business subsidies and the impacts of sanctions against Russia on the exports of Finnish companies. The Environment and Energy group has examined, for example, the targeting of electricity subsidies and energy and transport poverty. The Education, Labour Market and Households group has explored the impacts of the income limits of student financial aid, the placement of Ukrainians in the Finnish labour market, and the impacts of changes in distraint legislation on households.
Data Room as a basis for knowledge-based decision-making
Statistics Finland compiles data from society and ensures their data protection and data secure processing. The collected data are administrative register data and materials from data collections, for example.
Statistics Finland's Data Room team develops new materials in cooperation with the researchers of the Data Room. VATT organises the Data Room activities and examines and analyses the data. Helsinki GSE supports the Data Room in data analysis and competence development.
The Data Room supplies the studies and analyses it produces to ministries for decision-making and evaluation of measures.
Data available to the Data Room
The research projects of the Data Room have access to the following data materials obtained by Statistics Finland for statistical purposes.
- Data on excise duties
- Real estate tax database
- Data on inheritance and gift tax
- Tax credits for household expenses
- Data on debt restructuring
- Data on housing loans
- Data of the energy performance certificate register
- Data on buildings and dwellings
- Data on permits for newbuilding
- Data on electricity use
- Population change data
- Labour Force Survey inquiry data
- Data on business cycles
Release of data from administrative registers collected for statistical purposes for research use before the publication of statistics is possible for a valid reason unless the release of data infringes statistical confidentiality or essentially endangers the equal treatment of other data users.
Press releases
Further information
The Dataroom webpages (in Finnish) vattdatahuone.fi
datahuone@stat.fi