Markus Halonen Email and Phone Number

EurotaxGlasses bought Finnish company Grey-Hen Oy 2010. Grey-Hen Oy was known by it's Autovista information systems. Product name Autovista was owned by Grey-Hen.Eutrotaxglass then took Autovistagroup as it's company name.My main duty when I came to Grey-Hen Oy (AUtovista information solutions) 1996 was to develop data driven used car valuaiton system, especailly the statistical price modelling. Thiis system uses new car price and specs data and used car price observation data from several sources to create used car price estimates (valuations). My work was to develop these price models and do the related SAS programs and even operate the system. I was working alone in this department between 1996-1999 after which I came head of the team as we hired first person into the team. This team has then keep growing.The data driven used car valuations system which I and my team have been developing 26 came is now used in widely in the processes, products and services Autovistagroup. My current role in Autovistagroup is the leadership of the team of Statistics and Data Analyses&research, which then has 3 sub-teams. I still do some of my own data research and development when I have time.In total I have worked more than 26 years in this same field doing development of used car price and selling time modelling, SAs-programming and then later especially management and leadership of the team I have created around the system.

I have mainly worked in Autovistagroup and earlier (Grey-Hen Oy/Autovista Information systems) since 1996. I however worked 20 hours per week in National Consumer Research Center (Kuluttajatutkimuskeskus) during 1999-2001. I did data research around how moving from Finnish markka to Euro changed the pricing of new cars and used cars close to the moment of the change of currency.Also, together with Ville Aalto-Setälä we did research around attractive pricing actually used in car new and used cars and grocery market. ALso I did statistical (hedonic) modelling of prices of vacuum cleaners.I also reserached how changes in currency pass trough to price level of a country. I was using econometric modelling in this research.

I have joined two times Eurostat project for building used car price index.First was around 1999? and second was 2009?.The used car price index developed in these projects was actually calculated in my team using the data of Autovista from 2000 to 2022, until then Autovistagroup decided to stop it as it wasn't profitable enough to calculate.

I was working in Statistics Finland as trainee, analyst and then finalising my final theses for the University of Helsinki. The topic of my work was statistical modelling of used apartments and how these can be used for calculation of quality adjusted price index.The challenge in calculation of price index of used apartments is that every month, different basket of apartments is sold. Thus the changes in average price mainly reflect average quality differences of apartments sold in different months rather than pure price movements. Using statistical models (hedonic price models) we can calculate quality adjusted price index, as using the price models we can divide the average change in price into two components: quality difference+pure price difference.My work was guided by professor Yrjö Vartia and I got good advices from experts in Statistics Finland.This project was important for me as I got a job in Grey-Hen (Autovista information solutions) where I started to price modelling of used cars 1996. Also the idea of quality adjusted price index is currently in use in Autovistagroup, as Price Index calculated using this idea is shown in the products of Autovistagroup This index was developed by myself and my team. I have also mainly developed and also SAS-programmed the official price index methodology used by Statistics Finland between 2000-2022. The methodology was devloped in the joined project between Autovist information systems and Statistics Finland.