Finnish Cultural Foundation awarding a prize to Matti Pohjola
27.02.2012
The Finnish Cultural Foundation awarded its 2012 grants and prizes, totalling 21.3 million euros, at its annual gala on 27 February. In addition to Pohjola, photographer Sanna Kannisto and translator Oili Suominen also received an award of 30,000 euros each for outstanding cultural achievements.
Economist Matti Pohjola
Matti Pohjola, Professor of Economics at the Aalto University School of Economics, (b. 1950) received a degree in economics from the University of Tampere and wrote his doctoral thesis at the University of Cambridge in 1981. Before his appointment as professor at the Helsinki School of Economics in 1992, he worked at the Labour Institute for Economic Research and the Research Institute of the Finnish Economy and as Research Director and Deputy Director of the WIDER research institute.
In his work as an economist, Matti Pohjola has focused on matters concerning economic growth. In his dissertation, he discussed economic growth from the viewpoint of the mathematical chaos theory but then switched to studying social prerequisites for growth. Using game theories, he examined such issues as the success and long-term sustainability of the Nordic social model, negative effects of growth, and sulphur emissions causing acid rain.
Following the recession of the early 1990s, Matti Pohjola became interested in general factors behind productivity growth, focusing on the economic impacts of advances in the information technology. This also led him to study the role of electricity in long-term economic growth in Finland. During the past few years, Matti Pohjola has also begun to examine the relationship between economic growth and well-being. Recently he served as a member of a working group appointed by Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen, the task of which was to draw up indicators for measuring human well-being and the state of the environment. The idea was to develop indicators that could be used in addition to the gross domestic product.
Further information: Matti Pohjola, tel. +358 50 321 0260
