Jarkko Harju: Company behaviour – what affects it and to what degree?
According to Harju, companies play a significant role in society as definers of wealth and well-being on the long term. Therefore, it is important to enable an operating environment for them that is functional, just and fair.
Companies differ widely in terms of size, form, ownership and area of operations, for example. Company-level behaviour is the result of decisions made on many different levels, and it is guided by the obligations and restrictions placed on companies by society.
“Taxation and regulation may have a decisive impact on a company’s overall production, productivity and investment decisions, which has a direct effect on the efficiency of the economy. Companies, for their part, can be an important factor in how the products of the economy are distributed between owners and employees, which has direct impacts on the development of wage gaps and financial inequality in society.“
Harju has studied corporate behaviour extensively from tiny companies to large, international conglomerates. By empirically testing economic theory he has studied, for example, how raising and lowering VAT affects employment rate, product demand and the pricing decisions made by companies.
“With my research I strive to generate both important societal knowledge as well as new scientific knowledge on corporate behaviour across the entire business spectrum from small companies to large.”
Jarkko Harju's contact information
