The topic of this paper has been motivated by the rising unemployment rate of low-skilled relative to high-skilled labour in Switzerland. Between 1991 and 2014, Switzerland experienced the highest relative increase in the low-skilled unemployment rate among all OECD countries. A natural culprit...

This paper examines interest-parity conditions that arguably held as regards the investment demand for bills of exchange during the classical gold standard (1880-1914). Contemporaneous guides to the foreign exchanges report that close connections between the exchange and discount rates arose...

We estimate the size of inheritance flows in Switzerland over a long span of data, in close analogy to the study for France by Piketty (Q J Econ 126(3):1071-1131, 2011). We find that inheritance flows had been growing more slowly than national income up until the 1970s, but have been outpacing...

Creative accounting allows governments and, more particularly, finance ministers to somehow manage financial reports to achieve specific and possibly self-interested goals. It is usually used to hide deficits. It sometimes also helps to present financial performance as being more worrisome than...

This paper analyzes the relationship between factor substitutability and the energy intensity of manufacturing firms. Specifically, we compare the degree of substitutability between the input factors capital, labor, energy, and material for firms with low, medium, and high energy cost shares...

The sovereign money initiative will be submitted to the Swiss people in 2018. This paper reviews the arguments behind the initiative and discusses its potential impact. I argue that several arguments are inconsistent with empirical evidence or with economic logic. In particular, controlling...

This paper analyses the role of economists in advising political agents. Based on the experience in the recent financial crisis, it starts with the important role of expectations management. Economists should make clear that precise forecasts are not possible but that application of economic...

The aim of this paper is to present a review of the legal, theoretical, and empirical aspects of secessions from an economic perspective. This survey provides interesting insights into recent events such as the Brexit and the threat of secession made for instance by Scotland and Catalonia....