Publications

While the Nordic countries have long been champions of equality, the Covid-19 pandemic has put a new light on structural injustices inherent in our societies. In Copenhagen, Oslo, Helsinki, Stockholm, and Malmö, districts with a high share of residents with an immigrant background and a low socio-economic status stand out with high infection and mortality rates of Covid-19. The pandemic thus reveals and reminds us about the serious effects of segregation and unequal living conditions on citizens’ health status and ability to cope with and survive a pandemic. This Executive Summary is based on a quantitative and qualitative study. “Who is left behind? The impact of place on the ability to follow Covid-19 restrictions” aiming to identify structural barriers impacting residents’ ability to follow Covid-19 recommendations and guidelines, especially in low-income areas in major Nordic cities. Learning about these barriers – and effective measures taken to mitigate them – will help Nordic authorities and communities be better prepared for future challenges and crises. Read full publication “Who is left behind? The impact of place on the possibility to follow Covid-19 restrictions” here. Recording from 11 May webinar will soon be available on Nordregio’s youtube channel.

Housing plays a central role for people’s welfare. Its share of household consumption is about 25 percent on average, larger than that of any other item in a typical household’s budget. It is not surprising that issues related to housing figure prominently in public discussion. Nordic housing markets face more or less the same problems and challenges, but the ways policies and regulations deal with them differ in many respects. A comparison of policies, regulations and results across countries yields valuable lessons for policy makers. This year, the Nordic Economic Policy Review (NEPR) dives into the Nordic housing markets, examining some of the key policy mechanisms behind the rapidly rising housing prices, as well as the impacts on social welfare and social and ethnic segregation. The theme is selected by the NEPR steering group, which consists of representatives from the Nordic Ministries of Finance, Nordregio, and the NEPR academic project manager. This publication provides a short summary of the five NEPR 2021 articles, which seek to answer the following questions: André Anundsen: What is the prevalence of house price bubbles in the Nordics? Erlend Eide Bø: Do buy-to-let investments lead to higher housing prices? Mats Bergman and Sten Nyberg: What explains the large increase in the relative cost of construction? Niku Määttänen: How can housing taxation improve social welfare? Essi Eerola: How do Nordic housing policies affect affordability and integration? The full report is available here: https://pub.norden.org/nord2021-022/

Region Värmland is drawing up new strategies for regional development, skills and smart specialisation. In 2020, it commissioned Nordregio to review the skills supply and needs in the areas covered by its research and innovation strategy for smart specialisation 2015–2020. The aim of the review was to provide knowledge about the skills supply in the five areas designated in the strategy: Forest-based bioeconomy; Digitalisation of welfare services; Advanced manufacturing and complex systems; Nature, culture and place-based digitalised experiences; and Systems solutions with photovoltaics. It also covers the horizontal specialisation value-creating services, as well as a process model for gender integration. This Executive summary is based on the Nordregio Working Paper 2020:5 “Kompetensförsörjningsbehov inom områdena för Värmlands forsknings- och innovationsstrategi för smartspecialisering”

This executive summary examines the projected size, composition and geographic distribution of the population of the Arctic in the future, by examining the population projections carried out by the national and regional statistical offices in each of the Arctic regions. The executive summary is based on the Nordregio Working Paper, Polar Peoples in the Future: Projections of the Arctic Populations. Population projections are an input into population policy and are used by policymakers for a variety of planning purposes. Policymakers operating at different levels in the Arctic region should be aware of these population trends and able to plan for them.