Articles

Who benefits most from university education in Switzerland?

Recent literature on private returns to education considers diversity in the population, heterogeneity in wage gains and self-selection into schooling. This research addresses these issues by analyzing to what...

Authors: Lionel Perini

What news drive variation in Swiss and US bond and stock excess returns?

Based on a vector autoregressive model (VAR), this paper shows that time variation in monthly excess returns on Swiss government bonds and stocks is predominantly driven by news of inflation and dividends, res...

Authors: Thomas Nitschka

Inflation expectations, central bank credibility and the global financial crisis

Long-run inflation expectations should not respond to economic news if the central bank is seen as credibly committed to stabilising inflation. In this paper we find that since the onset of the global financia...

Authors: Petra Gerlach-Kristen and Richhild Moessner

Can green power save us from climate change?

International efforts to lower emissions have largely failed, and many now believe we will fail to limit warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius by 2100. In this extended abstract, I discuss whether a wholesale...

Authors: M. Scott Taylor

Environmental tax reforms in Switzerland a computable general Equilibrium impact analysis

The Swiss energy strategy until 2050 envisages ambitious CO₂ emission reduction targets along with substantial cutbacks in electricity consumption to establish a low-carbon economy without nuclear energy. Our com...

Authors: Christoph Böhringer and André Müller

Valuing Public Investments to Support Bicycling

We develop a framework for assessing the net benefits of investments to promote bicycling, which explicitly accounts for internal costs of bicycling. We apply our model to eight Swiss cities using data from th...

Authors: Thomas Götschi and Beat Hintermann

From Lifetime Jobs to Churning?

Using data over 1991–2008 for Switzerland, we investigate job stability through a series of Cox proportional hazards models. Our baseline results show that employment has become less stable for older male work...

Authors: Sylvain Weber and Giovanni Ferro Luzzi

Obtaining and Predicting the Bounds of Realized Correlations

This paper argues that the inherent data problems make precise point identification of realized correlation difficult but identification bounds in the spirit of Manski (1995) can be derived. These identification ...

Authors: Lidan Grossmass

Stock Market’s Reactions to Revelation of Tax Evasion: An Empirical Assessment

Additionally to the financial crisis causing a world recession, Liechtenstein’s financial sector has been challenged by the so-called “Zumwinkel-Affair”, when a whistle-blower sold data of hundreds of tax evad...

Authors: Andreas Brunhart

Multinational financial structure and tax competition

This paper analyzes tax competition when welfare maximizing jurisdictions levy source-based corporate taxes and multinational enterprises choose tax-efficient capital-to-debt ratios. Under separate accounting,...

Authors: Matthias Wrede

Spatial effects in willingness to pay for avoiding nuclear risks

How to deal with the risks associated with nuclear energy is a major policy issue. This paper investigates the effect of an individual’s distance from nuclear power plants on willingness to pay for increased i...

Authors: Yves Schneider and Peter Zweifel

Quantifying the impact of higher capital requirements on the Swiss economy

So far the discussion in Switzerland about the social costs and benefits of higher capital requirements resulting from the new Basel III Accord and the Swiss Too Big To Fail legislation has been heavily qualit...

Authors: Georg Junge and Peter Kugler

Monetary policy and asset prices: When cleaning up hits the zero lower bound

Recently, convincing evidence has been presented that the recession in the wake of the recent financial crisis resulted primarily from an overly levered housing sector that was forced to deleverage and cut con...

Authors: Wolfram Berger and Friedrich Kissmer

Fiscal institutions in Germany

In 2009 Germany introduced a new fiscal rule in its Basic Law. It stipulates that the federal budget must be (structurally) close to balance from 2016 onwards and does not allow for (structural) budget deficit...

Authors: Heiko T. Burret and Lars P. Feld

The Swedish fiscal policy framework and intermediate fiscal policy targets

Sweden is a front-runner in defining intermediate targets for fiscal policy (fiscal rules) as well as in setting up an independent fiscal council to monitor and comment on developments. Swedish public finances...

Authors: Torben M. Andersen

The development of independent fiscal institutions: Lessons from CBO

Authors: Barry Anderson

How to enforce fiscal discipline in EMU: A proposal

Based on Inman’s (1996) classification of successful fiscal policy rules, we argue that the Stability and Growth Pact suffers from two serious weaknesses: a politicized decision-making process and lack of effecti...

Authors: Jakob de Haan, Niels Gilbert, Jeroen Hessel and Silvie Verkaart

Public debt and economic growth in advanced economies: A survey

This paper surveys the recent literature on the links between public debt and economic growth in advanced economies. We find that theoretical models yield ambiguous results. Whether high levels of public debt ...

Authors: Ugo Panizza and Andrea F. Presbitero

European fiscal union: A vision for the long run

Authors: Carlo Cottarelli

Fiscal institutions at the cantonal level in Switzerland

In this paper, institutions are described which are designed to reach sustainability of public finances in the Swiss cantons. These are on the one hand direct popular rights, the fiscal referendum in particula...

Authors: Gebhard Kirchgässner

Lessons from the history and challenges for the future of the Swiss debt brake: A note

Authors: Peter Siegenthaler

The Swiss debt brake — has it been a success?

This paper describes how the Swiss fiscal rule at federal level has fared since it was introduced in 2003. Generally speaking, the rule has modified the budget process and led to a better implementation of fis...

Authors: Tobias Beljean and Alain Geier

The swiss debt brake — ten years on

Authors:

Driving forces of the Swiss output gap

What drives the output gap? Contrary to standard agnostic statistical approaches, New Keynesian small open economy models allow decomposing the output gap into its shocks and confirm the conventional wisdom th...

Authors: Stefan Leist

The determinants of long-run economic growth: A conceptually and computationally simple approach

In this paper we use principal components augmented regressions (PCARs), partly in conjunction with model averaging, to determine the variables relevant for economic growth. The use of PCARs allows to effectiv...

Authors: Jaroslava Hlouskova and Martin Wagner

Subsidized vocational training: Stepping stone or trap? Assessing empirical effects using matching techniques

Authors: Eva Dettmann and Jutta Günther

Wealth effects on consumption in Switzerland

This paper studies the role of wealth fluctuations for aggregate consumption in Switzerland. In the long-run, wealth is found to have a significant effect on consumption. In the short-run, by contrast, the eff...

Authors: Frank Schmid

The value of a statistical injury: New evidence from the Swiss labor market

We study the monetary compensation for non-fatal accident risk in Switzerland using the number of accidents within cells defined over industry × skill-level of the job and capitalizing on the partial panel str...

Authors: Andreas Kuhn and Oliver Ruf

Spatial and temporal aggregation in racial profiling

In the last decade, models of rational choice have chimed into the discussion on racial profiling, the use of race in stop and search decisions of the police. The models describe the behavior of motorists and ...

Authors: Dragan Ilić

The weak rationality principle in economics

The weak rationality principle is not an empirical statement but a heuristic rule for how to proceed in social sciences. It is a necessary ingredient of any ‘understanding’ social science in the Weberian sense...

Authors: Gebhard Kirchgässner

The ‘new firm paradigm’ and the provision of training: The impact of ICT, workplace organization and human capital

The paper analyzes the relevance of the three constituent elements of the ‘new firm paradigm’, i.e. ICT, workplace organization and human capital, as determinants of a firm’s provision of training. We concentr...

Authors: Heinz Hollenstein and Tobias Stucki

Demand for reserves and the central bank’s management of interest rates

The implementation of monetary policy is prevalently done by interest rate targeting with a short term market rate serving as operational target. The instruments for achieving the operational target are the pr...

Authors: Sébastien Kraenzlin and Martin Schlegel

Free mobility with the EU and immigration of North American brains to Switzerland: What consequences?

In 2002, Switzerland started to implement free mobility with the European Union and simultaneously immigration rules for citizens from the rest of the world became more stringent. Only skilled workers could be...

Authors: Dominique M. Gross

R&D, competition and growth with human capital accumulation revisited

Authors: Dominique Bianco

Socialisation, trust and reciprocity among young people

This paper analyzes the contribution of youth’s different time allocations to positive behaviors in exchanges. Psychologists highlight that time spent within voluntary organizations fosters positive developmen...

Authors: Matteo Migheli

Is there a Swiss price puzzle?

This paper estimates the response of consumer prices to a monetary policy shock in Switzerland. We find that there is no evidence of a price puzzle at the aggregate level. This is because our factor-augmented ...

Authors: Daniel Kaufmann and Sarah Lein

Application of the Swiss fiscal rule to artificial data a Monte Carlo simulation

The Swiss fiscal rule or “debt brake” is applied to simulated data of economic output and fiscal revenues. The budget remains almost perfectly balanced and the debt ratio stable over the medium and long term: ...

Authors: Alain Geier

How migrant networks facilitate trade: Evidence from Swiss exports

This paper uses Swiss immigration data and two novel instrumental variables to test the channels through which migrants promote trade. Using the immigrant stock in France as well as Swiss visa restrictions as ...

Authors: Pierre-Louis Vézina

Did the Bundesbank target monetary expansion or inflation? Evidence from monetary base growth

Several empirical studies have suggested that the Bundesbank has pursued inflation targets rather than monetary targets. These studies have been criticized because they do not adequately measure the deviation ...

Authors: Galina Boeva and Roland Vaubel

Household money demand: The euro area case

In this paper we analyse household holdings of the broad monetary aggregate M3 in the euro area from 1991 until 2010. We develop a nominal model with satisfactory economic and statistical properties. The main ...

Authors: Franz Seitz and Julian von Landesberger

Exchange rates and import prices in Switzerland

For the case of Switzerland, this paper endeavours to estimate the empirical extent to which exchange rates are “passed-through” onto import prices. For data covering the 1999 to 2010 period, the results sugge...

Authors: Nils Herger

Assessment of Acceptable Swiss post-2012 Climate Policies

In the framework of the revision of the Swiss CO₂-Law and in the preparation of the international negotiations that place at the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Cha...

Authors: André Sceia, Juan-Carlos Altamirano-Cabrera, Marc Vielle and Nicolas Weidmann

Swiss Energy Strategies under Global Climate Change and Nuclear Policy Uncertainty

Domestic strategies for the Swiss energy system are likely to be affected by a range of uncertain global challenges, such as natural resource availability and depletion, international climate change policies, ...

Authors: Adriana Marcucci and Hal Turton

Swiss Climate Change and Nuclear Policy: A Comparative Analysis Using an Energy System Approach and a Sectoral Electricity Model

Decisions on climate change and nuclear policies are likely to have major influences on the future evolution of the Swiss energy system. To understand the implications of selected future policy decisions, we a...

Authors: Nicolas Weidmann, Ramachandran Kannan and Hal Turton

Assessing the Future of Renewable and Smart Grid Technologies in Regional Energy Systems

In this paper we present the regional techno-economic model ETEM, designed for the analysis of regional energy/environment systems and we show how it can be used to explore the possible penetration of new tech...

Authors: F. Babonneau, A. Haurie, G. J. Tarel and J. Thénié

Fuel Exemptions, Revenue Recycling, Equity and Efficiency: Evaluating Post-Kyoto Policies for Switzerland

The Swiss CO₂ law runs out in 2012, together with the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. Currently, the Swiss parliament is deciding on the successor of the law that aims to achieve a 20% reduction of...

Authors: Jan Imhof

Linking the Swiss Emissions Trading System with the EU ETS: Economic Effects of Regulatory Design Alternatives

The Swiss government intends to link the Swiss Emissions Trading System to the EU ETS after 2012. Employing GENESwIS, a dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model of the Swiss economy, we investigate t...

Authors: Frank Vöhringer

Sectoral Growth Effects of Energy Policies in an Increasing-Varieties Model of the Swiss Economy

The paper applies a theoretical model with increasing capital varieties to study the impact of energy on growth. It translates a multisectoral framework version to a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model ...

Authors: Lucas Bretschger and Roger Ramer

Introduction to Energy Systems Modelling

The energy demand and supply projections of the Swiss government funded by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy and carried out by a consortium of institutes and consulting companies are based on two types of en...

Authors: Andrea Herbst, Felipe Toro, Felix Reitze and Eberhard Jochem

Special Issue on Energy Modelling: Introductory Article

Authors: Nicole A. Mathys, Philippe Thalmann and Marc Vielle