FIRE Visitor Samuel Solomon sees Finnish register data opening answers unavailable elsewhere
FIRE Visiting Fellow Samuel Solomon says Finland’s unique population-wide registers open new possibilities for research. According to Solomon, the future of register-based research lies increasingly in combining register data with other data sources and self-collected survey data.
The Finnish Infrastructure for Register-Based Research (FIRE) has launched its Visiting Fellow programme, inviting leading international scholars to collaborate with Finnish researchers and explore Finland’s unique register data.
In May, Assistant Professor Samuel Solomon from Tempe University, USA, has arrived to visit Aalto University. The visit is hosted by Associate Professor Elias Rantapuska.
Samuel Solomon is a a labor economist and currently focus on issues related to occupational choice, remote work, and social mobility. He has been using Finnish register data for several years.
“I believe it is of very high quality. Finnish register data has data that most countries around the world do not have, and covers the entire population and goes back several decades. This allows researchers like me to answer questions that have gone unanswered in part due to data limitations.”
During his FIRE Visiting Fellow period he hopes to further deepen his existing relationships with my Finnish colleagues as well as build new ones.
“I have been working with Finnish colleagues and Finnish data for several years now and was excited to gain a new experience in Finland this summer. I think this fellowship will allow me to continue to formalize and enrich my relationship with Finland and am very grateful for this opportunity”, Solmon says.
“I would also like to finish my existing research projects and submit them for publication, and then start new projects.”
Solomon highlights the strengths of Finnish register data.
“Access to high-quality, rich data is imperative for economics, social science, and research in general. Register-based research is one of the best ways to achieve that goal and advance our knowledge base. In the future, register-based research could be further enriched by advancing our capabilities to link it with other sources of data as well as with self-collected survey data. In addition, utilizing recent advances in artificial intelligence in the context of register-based research is an important area to consider.”
