Analyzing Economic Structural Change in a General Equilibrium Framework: The case of Switzerland from 1990 to 2001

Structural change is influenced by many factors, including technological changes and shifts in consumer preferences. These factors have an important impact on economic performance through the reallocation of resources from one economic activity to another. Applying SwissAGE, a general equilibrium model for Switzerland, this study focuses first on the estimation of changes in technology and consumer preferences. It shows then how economic history can be explained in terms of these driving factors. In particular, it shows that decrease in capital/labour ratio mitigates growth in real GDP and increase in export-oriented production heavily contributes to rapid growth in Swiss trade across the period 1990 to 2001..