Forestry, paper factories, and the agricultural sector (on which taxpayers spend around 2 billion euro annually) are politically sensitive to rural residents.

Finland is the only Nordic country to have joined the Eurozone; Denmark and Sweden have retained their traditional currencies, whereas Iceland and Norway are not members of the EU at all.

[34][35] Being geographically distant from Western and Central Europe in relation to other Nordic countries, Finland struggled behind in terms of industrialization apart from the production of paper, which partially replaced the export of timber solely as a raw material towards the end of the nineteenth century.

[37] The causes for the deceleration of growth were the general strike of 1956, as well as weakened export trends and easing of the strict regulation of Finland's foreign trade in 1957.

[37] After failed experiments with protectionism, [citation needed] Finland eased some restrictions and signed a free trade agreement with the European Community in 1973.

Most farmland had originally been either forest or swamp, and the soil had usually required treatment with lime and years of cultivation to neutralise excess acid and to develop fertility.

[45] Until the late nineteenth century, Finland's isolation required that most farmers concentrate on producing grains to meet the country's basic food needs.

These changes in market conditions induced Finland's farmers to switch from growing staple grains to producing meat and dairy products, setting a pattern that persisted into the late 1980s.

This policy enjoyed some success: the total area under cultivation increased, and farm incomes fell less sharply in Finland than in most other countries.

The experiences of the depression and the war years persuaded the Finns to secure independent food supplies to prevent shortages in future conflicts.

As in agriculture, the government has long played a leading role in forestry, regulating tree cutting, sponsoring technical improvements, and establishing long-term plans to ensure that the country's forests continue to supply the wood-processing industries.

Farmers supplemented their incomes with earnings from selling their wood, caring for forests, or logging; forestry made many otherwise marginal farms viable.

Beginning in 1965, the country instituted plans that called for expanding forest cultivation, draining peatland and waterlogged areas, and replacing slow-growing trees with faster-growing varieties.

Other Finnish companies – such as Instru, Vaisala and Neles (now part of Metso) - have succeeded in areas such as industrial automation, medical and meteorological technology.

[61] These include the Fiskars owned Iittala Group, Artek a furniture design firm co-created by Alvar Aalto, and Marimekko made famous by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

[64] Though foreign investment is not as high as some other European countries, the largest foreign-headquartered companies included names such as ABB, Tellabs, Carlsberg and Siemens.

[70] Finland's income is generated by the approximately 1.8 million private sector workers, who make an average 25.1 euro per hour (before the median 60% tax wedge) in 2007.

Krugman notes that Sweden, which has yet to join the single currency, had similar rates of growth compared to Finland for the period since the introduction of the euro.

[84] If Finland had retained its own currency, unpredictable exchange rates would prevent the country from selling its products at competitive prices on the European market.

[85] This exchange rate policy has in the short term benefited the Swedish economy in two ways; (1) much of Sweden's European trade is already denominated in euros and therefore bypasses any currency fluctuation and exchange rate losses, (2) it allows Sweden's non-euro-area exports to remain competitive by dampening any pressure from the financial markets to increase the value of the currency.

According to the grand jury of the 2006 European Enterprise Awards, effective "entrepreneurial thinking" was held to be at the root of central Finland's position as "the most entrepreneur-friendly region in the world".

In contrast, during the 1990s, Denmark liberalised its job market, Sweden moved to more decentralised contracts, whereas Finnish trade unions blocked many reforms.

[67] Those who favor less centralized labor market policies consider these agreements bureaucratic, inflexible, and along with tax rates, a key contributor to unemployment and distorted prices.

[93] Centralized agreements may hinder structural change as there are fewer incentives to acquire better skills, although Finland already enjoys one of the highest skill-levels in the world.

Another study by Karlson, Johansson & Johnsson estimates that the fraction of the buyer's income entering the service vendor's wallet (inverted tax wedge) is slightly over 15%, compared to 10% in Belgium, 25% in France, 40% in Switzerland and 50% in the United States.

[100] State and municipal politicians have struggled to cut their consumption, which is very high at 51.7% of GDP compared to 56.6% in Sweden, 46.9% in Germany, 39.3% in Canada, and 33.5% in Ireland.

The prolonged worldwide boom, beginning in the late 1940s and lasting until the first oil crisis in 1973, was a challenge that Finland met and from which it emerged with a highly sophisticated and diversified economy, including a new occupational structure.

Sociologists have found that people with a farming background were present in other occupations to a considerably greater extent in Finland than in other West European countries.

[103] A tripling or quadrupling in any one generation of the numbers receiving schooling beyond the required minimum reflected the needs of a developing economy for skilled employees.

The increased wealth produced by an advanced economy was distributed to wage earners via the system of broad income agreements that evolved in the postwar era.