Competition in Finland: Trends across Business Sectors in 1994-2004

Maliranta MikaPajarinen MikaRouvinen Petri Ylä-Anttila Pekka

KTM Julkaisuja 2007:13

This report studies the 1994–2004 linear trend changes in the intensity of competition across Finnish business sectors particularly in services with a new measure based on Jan Boone’s theoretical work. Comparable results are also derived using various previously suggested indicators. The robustness of the new indicator with respect to the technical choices made is evaluated by considering several alternative specifications. While there is still ample scope for further enhancements, the new indicator is arguably preferred over the previously available alternatives for both analytical/theoretical and empirical reasons. Given the significant differences between the various measures, they nevertheless give a surprisingly uniform picture of the overall changes across industries, even if they often disagree in industry-by-industry
comparisons: all implemented measures suggest that in 1994–2004 competition has intensified in most Finnish service industries; most service employees work in the industries where competition has intensified. Compared to manufacturing, the change in the intensity of competition in services is more pronounced. According to the suggested Boone indicator, in 1994–2004 there was a trend of intensifying competition in 61% of the 3-digit service industries (compared to 57% in manufacturing). As these industries have on average been larger, 74% of service employees work in industries where competition has intensified (compared to 49% in manufacturing).

Publication info

Date
19.03.2007
Pages
49
Availability of print version
Available
Language
English
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