<p>Why did Finland bail out of the TIMSS tests in 2000? Perhaps because they were ranked 14th in 1999?</p>
<p>“Finland’s economic growth will peak at 2.1 percent in 2015, before slowing to 1.6 percent in 2017, after a 0.2 percent contraction in 2012, the Finance Ministry estimates. Sluggish demand has prompted companies to cut jobs, pushing unemployment to 8.7 percent in February from 7.7 percent a year earlier. An aging population is adding to the strain on government coffers.”</p>
<p>"“After the decline of Nokia and the paper industry, Finland has been puzzled as to where growth would come from,” Tuulia Asplund, an economist at Svenska Handelsbanken AB in Helsinki, said by phone. “Even if no new Nokias emerge, this program demonstrates the government’s willingness to find new sources of output.” "</p>
<p>[Finland</a> Turns to Venture Funds to Rescue Economy: Nordic Credit - Bloomberg](<a href=“Bloomberg - Are you a robot?”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?)</p>
<p>I think that Nokia helped Finland considerably but Nokia went from world-class to getting trounced by Apple (United States), Google (United States) and Samsung (South Korea). Interestingly, they tried partnering with Microsoft (United States) to try to recover but it’s not going so well (I have a brother-in-law that works there and it’s not a happy place - but they do give him a lot of vacation time).</p>