The increasing availability of open statistical data resources is providing novel opportunities for research and citizen science. Efficient algorithmic tools are needed to realize the full potential of the new information resources. We introduce the eurostat R package that provides a collection of custom tools for the Eurostat open data service, including functions to query, download, manipulate, and visualize these data sets in a smooth, automated and reproducible manner. The online documentation provides detailed examples on the analysis of these spatio-temporal data collections. This work provides substantial improvements over the previously available tools, and has been extensively tested by an active user community. The eurostat R package contributes to the growing open source ecosystem dedicated to reproducible research in computational social science and digital humanities.

This dissertation consists of an introductory chapter and four separate empirical studies which study higher education and productivity in Finland. Introductory chapter presents shortly the motivation, background and main results of this thesis. First three articles focus on the relationship between working while studying, dropout behavior and later labor market outcomes at individual level. Fourth article examines how subsidies affect labor productivity at the firm level.The first article of this thesis studies how working while studying relates to earnings after graduation from university or polytechnic. Analysis focuses on working while studying and earnings over two year period after graduation. The results show that early work experience is related to higher earnings right after graduation year, but instrumental variable estimations find no significant causal effect for university students.The second article explores on the relationship between working while studying and migration. Migration propensities are studied up to three years after graduation. Results show that working while studying can partly explain why the mobility of highly educated people has declined. We find that that there are differences by study region and earlier migration behavior.The third article examines the relationship between the decision to drop out from university and labor market outcomes. Results indicate that compared to similar university graduates, the dropouts' annual earnings are on average 11,000 euros lower four years after the dropout decision. Dropouts have also a higher probability of being self-employed than similar graduates.The fourth article examines the effect of R&D subsidies on labour productivity. Study uses firm-level data on Finnish SMEs from 2000 to 2012 and apply a combined matching and difference-in-differences method to control for selection bias. Study does not find significant positive effect on labour productivity over the five-year period after a subsidy is granted.

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The paper asks whether R&D's productivity impacts are conditional on the gap of a plant's productivity from the industry's technological frontier. The results show that a plant's own R&D and a parent firm's R&D have a positive productivity impact. The impact of a plant's own R&D decreases as the gap from the industry's technological frontier grows. Furthermore, the productivity impact of other firms' (geographic) distance-weighted R&D is, on average, positive. However, this impact increases as the gap from the technological frontier grows. JEL classification: D24, L00

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