This paper argues that economic competition and political contestability are two key determinants of the successful development of the Swiss economy in the nineteenth and twentieth century. We describe how Switzerland evolved from a relatively poor country with no natural resources and net...

This paper presents a framework to assess the relative importance of three key sources of productivity growth that research on international trade focuses on: (i) inter-industry specialisation; (ii) intra-industry reallocation of resources across heterogeneous firms, including firm entry and...

Klaus Armingeon criticizes our paper "Distribution Effects of Opening up an Economy and Voting Behaviour: An Analysis Based on the Example of the Swiss Vote on the EEA" published in this journal in 1998. In this reply we argue that his critique is mainly due to a misinterpretation of the goal of...

This paper investigates which variables determine the relative attractiveness of locations for mobile factors of production. The analysis is based on a survey of 1400 Swiss firms. It is found that the availability of human capital as well as the nature of regulations (especially of the procedure...

This article challenges the view that a lack of competition and a high level of regulations are the main causes of Switzerland's high prices. First, we point out a number of stylized facts which are inconsistent with this popular view. Second, we econometrically asses the "competition-regulation...

Two countries, which differ with respect to domestic demand for two groups of differentiated products, are considered in a setting of monopolistic competition where international trade is subject to transaction costs. It is shown that relative differences in demand determine the trade pattern....