Matti Ylönen

Tavion toiminta on todella huolestuttavaa suomalaisen oikeusvaltion ja koko yhteiskunnan kannalta. Yksittäisiä tahoja ollaan aivan ilmeisesti valmiita syrjimään jopa lain rajoja koetellen. www.hs.fi/politiikka/a...

Reconceptualising the Brussels Effect The Brussels effect has become a major tool for analysing the global exemplary impact of the European Union (EU) rules in academia and policy-making. It is entering uncharted territory. Heightened co...

Back to the future! Happy to note that my reconceptualisation of the Brussels Effect has just been published in the January 2026 issue of the @jcms-eu.bsky.social

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Tervetuloa Poliittinen talous -lehden afterworkkiin, jossa keskustelunaiheena on digijättien lobbaus Euroopan unionissa.

Tapahtuma pidetään 10.12. kello 18–20 Ravintola Kustaa Vaasassa (Vaasankatu 10, Helsinki). Tilaisuus on maksuton ja avoin kaikille. 1/8

Bryssel-efekti Trumpin ja Muskin aikakaudella Anu Bradfordin kehittämä teoria Bryssel-efektistä löi 2020-luvun vaihteessa voimalla läpi sekä akatemiassa että eurooppalaisen politiikan kentillä. Tämän tutkimustani yhteen vetävän ja edelleen jalost...

Jos haluaa tuoreen ja perusteellisen poliittisen talouden näkökulman EU-sääntelyn nykytilaan ja tulevaisuuteen sekä Brysselin efektiin, niin tässä 👇 sinulla on sellainen @mattiylonen.bsky.social kirjoittamana @poliittinentalous.bsky.social seuran Poliittinen talous -lehden julkaisemana.

America’s Polarization Has Become the World's Side Hustle The 'psyops' revealed by X are entirely the fault of the perverse incentives created by social media monetization programs.

New from 404 Media: X has shown where accounts are actually being run from, revealing many MAGA accounts are actually grifters in Eastern Europe, Asia, etc. But the situation is much, much worse. Entire guides specifically on how to squeeze US audiences with AI.

www.404media.co/americas-pol...

An interesting figure on investment treaties from this book: scholarship.law.columbia.edu/sustainable_...

Separate UNCTAD data shows that the numbers have since (–2022) only declined. The investment treaty space remains rooted in provisions from the golden era of pre-financial-crisis globalization.

Four more deals announced - Argentina, Guatemala, Ecuador, El Salvador - with similar language on "discriminatory" digital services taxes.

Trump is clearly committed to playing bilateral whack-a-mole to prevent DSTs.

I'm reading the World Bank's 2024 International Debt Report, and what a blunt way to kick-off such a document! Not long ago, so many people in development policy circles were indeed repeating the "from billions to trillions" phrase as a silver bullet for development financing and global development.

In Mamdani's New York win, India's Nehru finds an echo At his New York victory rally, Zohran Mamdani gave a nod to Nehru’s iconic speech marking India's independence.

Listening to Mamdani's victory speech while working, I was surprised to hear him quoting prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru – a very different kind of economic nationalist than President Trump. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Just submitted this Abstract to the British International Studies Association conference in Glasgow in 06/2026, alongside a panel proposal on taxation and International Political Economy we're submitting with @katharinakuhn.bsky.social. Never been to BISA but would be great to go. Deadline today.

Meidän @teppoeskelinen.bsky.social toimittamassamme Tyhmenevä demokratia -kirjassa koitimme tuoda esiin samansuuntaista pointtia: faktat ovat tärkeitä, mutta demokratialle keskeistä on myös eri ammattikuntien (toimittajat, tutkijat, ministeriöt, järjestöt) lähtökohdista tuotetut tulkintakehykset.

I had to look up an article from the first issue of the World Development, 1973. They launched the journal with style. (The article was "Fact and Fancy in International Economic Relations" by Thomas Balogh & Peter Balacs – in a very different genre from the econometric studies that prevail today.)

Parhaillaan käydään parlamentaarisia neuvotteluita velkajarrusta. Neuvotteluissa olisi syytä ottaa huomioon myös lakiin sisältyvä niin sanottu turvamarginaalisäädös, jonka myötä sosiaaliturvarahastojen ylijäämät jätettäisiin huomiotta arvioitaessa EU-sääntöjen mukaista 3 prosentin alijäämärajaa. 1/x

Tax games: the case of Ireland in the global dynamics of corporate taxation This article proposes a new analytical framework of ‘tax games’ providing fresh insights into the dynamics of global corporate taxation. Tax games are defined as institutionalised configurations of...

Now open access on @tandfresearch.bsky.social!

Ní Chasaide, N., & Ó Riain, S. (2025). Tax games: the case of Ireland in the global dynamics of corporate taxation. Review of International Political Economy
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

"The paradox of the UN is the decline in its fortunes and prestige at a time when the demand for international management and cooperation, arising from growing interdependence and a burgeoning of global problems, has never been clearer or more insistent." From 1989, but could be from today's news.

Then he went to Ghana, pivoted to Marxism, and noted in his unfinished biographical essay that "we must ... appear unorthodox, troublesome, dangerous, and disobedient to them who begat us." An untypical IB scholar in today's standards. But then again, so was Raymond Vernon, Edith Penrose, etc.

I've been back reading Stephen Hymer: a fascinating figure. In his life that was cut short at just 39 years, he kicked off International Business studies with a thesis that revitalized the 1930s monopolistic competition ideas, and was at first deemed "analytically insufficient" for publication. 1/2

Mainos Poliittinen talous -lehdessä julkaistusta alkuperäisartikkelista, jonka otsikko on "Digijätit Euroopan unionissa: lobbaus alistakapitalismin aikakaudella.

Tuoreessa artikkelissaan dos. Matti Ylönen @mattiylonen.bsky.social ja VTT Laura Nordström @lauranordstrom.bsky.social tarkastelevat teknologiayritysten lobbausta Euroopan unionissa. 1/4

The Noam Chomsky Music Project The Noam Chomsky Music Project aims to both preserve and celebrate his outlook on the world and amplify his voice through Music.

Today I've been captivated by this project, which I stumbled upon via Spotify's algorithms. I haven’t explored everything yet, but highlighting e.g. Brad Reason's breakbeat tracks with early 2000s feel, and Mikael Ayrapetyan's somber piano pieces. Strange and alluring.
thenoamchomskymusicproject.com

One of the joys of academia is struggling with an elusive argument for a long time (even years) and then discovering an old book that helps to settle that matter.

The autobiography of Charles Kindleberger was interesting—even funny—reading. During this trip in Helsinki, he bought a huge rye bread, mistaking it for a gingerbread. He also visited UNU-WIDER in 1986, struggling to find a mechanical typewriter, as only electric ones were in offer.

Canada scraps tech tax to advance trade talks with Donald Trump US president had described levy as ‘direct and blatant’ attack on the country

Canada becomes the second country (after India) to scale back its taxation of US Big Tech to appease Trump, whereas others (notably the UK) have resisted

Flawed Impact Metrics Jeopardize EU Deregulation Plans, Study Finds | University of Helsinki A newly published peer-reviewed study has raised concerns about the evidence base behind the European Union’s long-running efforts to reduce bureaucracy for businesses, suggesting that key measurement...

For those who prefer something shorter to a full-length academic article, here's a press release of the article “What Sustains Flawed Indicators? Unpacking the EU’s Administrative Burden Agenda” (w/ Tero Erkkilä), published at the Policy Studies journal yesterday: www.helsinki.fi/en/news/fair... 1/4

The IEG concluded that the EU's Standard Cost Model's focus on administrative costs made it a narrow measure of social value, as it "ignores any benefits of regulation: [it] can only treat regulation as a burden, cost, or constraint on businesses – but never as something that enables benefits." 4/4

We also note how this earlier self-criticism mirrored similar concerns raised in 2015 by the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) of the World Bank, which has been another major proponent of the administrative burdens agenda. 3/4

We highlight how the EC's 2012 report on Regulatory Fitness stated: "the Commission does not believe that setting global targets and/or quantitative formulae for managing the stock of legislation will produce the desired results." Yet, the EC is now back at using such targets and formulae. 2/4

Flawed Impact Metrics Jeopardize EU Deregulation Plans, Study Finds | University of Helsinki A newly published peer-reviewed study has raised concerns about the evidence base behind the European Union’s long-running efforts to reduce bureaucracy for businesses, suggesting that key measurement...

For those who prefer something shorter to a full-length academic article, here's a press release of the article “What Sustains Flawed Indicators? Unpacking the EU’s Administrative Burden Agenda” (w/ Tero Erkkilä), published at the Policy Studies journal yesterday: www.helsinki.fi/en/news/fair... 1/4

Finally, we lay out a typology of factors that sustain flawed indicators such as the administrative burdens. This article appears in a Special Issue (SI) edited by Ali Saqer. The analysis is directly relevant e.g. to the debates on the EU’s omnibus directives and the Competitiveness Compass. 5/5

Further, we track 4. The active and so far almost completely unexplored involvement of the World Bank and the OECD in this policy diffusion; and 5. The curious persistence of the administrative burden agenda despite its evident, long-standing flaws and omissions. 4/5

We trace and analyze: 1. The roots of the administrative burden agenda, beginning with the 1990s Dutch experiments; 2. The questionable methodologies of these quantifications; 3. Their diffusion throughout the EU and globally with an exceptional, disproportionate reliance on consultants 3/5