Like most countries, the Swiss government adopted drastic measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus. These measures were aimed at avoiding close physical proximity between people. The adverse economic consequences of this lockdown policy became immediately apparent, with almost two million...

The number of short-time workers from January to April 2020 is used to now- and forecast quarterly GDP growth. We purge the monthly log level series from the systematic component to extract unexpected changes or shocks to log short-time workers. These monthly shocks are included in a univariate...

Sharp changes in consumer expenditure may bias inflation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using public data from debit card transactions, I quantify these changes in consumer spending, update CPI basket weights and construct an alternative price index to measure the effect of the COVID-induced...

This paper analyzes card payments to the retail sector in Switzerland during the COVID-19 crisis. We provide evidence on aggregate effects and regional shifts. Pronounced shifts-which persisted post-lockdown-can be observed from urban to suburban and rural areas and among cantons. Data allow us...

The mutual funds' returns, inter alia, are dependent on fund managers' performance. This makes human capital efficiency very central for consistent risk-adjusted performance. The persistence in performance becomes more critical during periods of high turbulence, like the one we are experiencing...

Do childcare institutions affect gender norms of individuals? I examine the introduction of childcare services and their impact on voters' support of policies promoting maternal employment. I address the inherent endogeneity between institutions and attitudes by exploiting regional variation in...

Using online data for prices and real-time debit card transaction data on changes in expenditures for Switzerland allows us to track inflation on a daily basis. While the daily price index fluctuates around the official price index in normal times, it drops immediately after the lockdown related...

Entitlements for social security and occupational pensions present a major wealth component and play a central role for financial security. However, most individual-level data lacks information on pension wealth. By linking various data sources, this contribution estimates the present value of...

This paper provides a first set of results on the impact of minimum wage regulation in Switzerland. We study the effects of an unexpected Supreme Court ruling mandating the Swiss canton of Neuchâtel to enforce a minimum hourly wage of around CHF 20 previously accepted via popular ballot. Given...

We estimate the effect of an electricity tax on aggregate electricity consumption with the synthetic control method. The tax was introduced in the Swiss city of Basel in 1999 and, together with other tariff changes, increased marginal electricity prices by 5.4-8.0%. We compare the actual and a...