We examine to what extent mortgage lending is characterized by strong relationships between banks and their borrowers. Our analysis is based on survey data covering all current bank relations for a sample of 1,481 Swiss households out of which 687 have a mortgage. We document that mortgage...

We present an integration based procedure for predicting the distribution f of an indicator of interest in situations where, in addition to the sample data, one has access to covariates that are available for the entire population. The proposed method, based on similar ideas that have been used...

This paper gives an overview of tax non-compliance estimates and evaluates the suitability of various tax non-compliance measurement methods for Switzerland. The existing estimates for Switzerland focus strongly on non-declared assets and are based on a limited number of measurement methods....

In this study, the author assesses whether the gambling tax in Switzerland is regressive using a large, representative sample of the population and the reported gambling expenditures of the Swiss Health Survey 2007 (SHS 07). To analyze the tax incidence, the Suits index was constructed. This...

Assume that the private goods and the public good are weakly separable, the private goods are gross complements, and the private utility function is a homogeneous of degree one function with constant elasticity of substitution. We demonstrate that, under commodity taxation, the social marginal...

We draw microdata from the Swiss Household Panel to estimate the causal effect of obesity on the number of physician visits, the amount of hospital days, and the respective costs incurred. We do so by simultaneously coping with three endogeneity issues, comprising reporting errors, omitted...

Understanding how internal capital and labor markets function sheds light on one of the most fundamental questions in economics: what determines the boundaries of the firm? This essay reviews the theoretical and empirical literature on internal capital markets and firm boundaries, focusing in...

In this paper we analyze financial crises, and the interactions of macroprudential policy and credit. Financial crises are recurrent systemic phenomena, often-triggering deep and long-lasting recessions with large reductions in aggregate welfare, output and employment. Importantly for policy,...

Government bond markets in the Euro Area are highly fragmented causing further fragmentation in bond and equity markets. Capital Markets Union with fully integrated capital markets across member countries can only work when the status of member country sovereign bonds as risk-free assets is...