News 4.3.2014
Eino H. Laurila national income medal awarded to Eeva Hamunen, Sixten Korkman and Alpo Willman
The Eino H. Laurila national income medal for the year 2013 has been awarded to PhD Sixten Korkman, PhD Alpo Willman and MSSc Eeva Hamunen. The medals are granted in recognition of their active work in promoting the use of national accounts and knowledge about them.
Sixten Korkman, PhD, is an active debater and writer, who has made an impressive career in the service of business life, administration and science. He has worked as Managing Director at the Research Institute of the Finnish Economy (ETLA) and at the Finnish Business and Policy Forum (EVA). In addition, he has headed the Economic and Financial Affairs Council (Ecofin) of the Council of the European Union and the Economics Department of the Ministry of Finance. Korkman has published several popular books on the national economy. At the moment, he is Professor at the Department of Economics at Aalto University.
Alpo Willman, Professor at the School of Economics at the University of Kent, worked long as a researcher at the Bank of Finland and at the European Central Bank. He had a central role in developing macroeconomic models at the Bank of Finland and in constructing macroeconomic models for several euro area countries at the European Central Bank. He was also involved in the compilation of the national accounts system connected to these models and data according to the model. In recent years, Willman has published significant macroeconomic studies on capital-labour substitution.
Eeva Hamunen, MSSc, has had a long career as an expert and developer of national accounts at Statistics Finland. With her deep insight, she has contributed much to the reforms of national accounts in the last few decades. Ms Hamunen has for several years been Finland's representative in co-operation groups on national accounts (e.g. the GNP Committee). She has also taken an active part in training new national accounts experts.
The Eino H. Laurila national income medal is awarded in recognition of noteworthy work to advance 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 work on the compilation of statistics. 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:
Ari Tyrkkö, Head, Co-ordination and International Activities, Statistics Finland, +358 1734 3261; email: firstname.lastname@stat.fi