ABSTRACT
One important feature about post-war economic developments in Finland has been the increasing openness of the economy. Important supply-side factors contributing to the extensive post-war export-led growth of industrial production have included a well educated labour force, the rather favourable cost structure of many industries and the gradually shrinking technology gap between Finland and its foreign competitors. The volume of Finnish commodity exports has grown in the post-war period by about 6.5 percent p.a. on average and industrial production by approximately 5.2 percent, or clearly faster than the total gross domestic product (GDP). In the period 1950–70 GDP growth was about 4.9 percent per year on average, whereas it slowed down to about 3.3 percent in the following 15-year period. The internationalization of Finnish companies thus started late compared with other western industrialized countries. In order to maintain international competitiveness a more flexible exchange rate policy and a policy of fostering structural change through various measures have been adopted.
