IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/unu/wpaper/rp2009-25.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Switzerland's Rise to a Wealthy Nation: Competition and Contestability as Key Success Factors

Author

Listed:
  • Beatrice Weder
  • Rolf Weder

Abstract

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 emigration in 1800 to one of the richest countries of the world two hundred years later. Based on quantitative and qualitative evidence, we argue that early internationalization, open and flexible markets as well as a high degree of competition were crucial for the development of the Swiss economy.

Suggested Citation

  • Beatrice Weder & Rolf Weder, 2009. "Switzerland's Rise to a Wealthy Nation: Competition and Contestability as Key Success Factors," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2009-25, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    • Handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:rp2009-25
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/RP2009-25.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Petra Moser, 2005. "How Do Patent Laws Influence Innovation? Evidence from Nineteenth-Century World's Fairs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1214-1236, September.
    2. Peter Kugler & Beatrice Weder, 2004. "International Portfolio Holdings and Swiss Franc Asset Returns," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 140(III), pages 301-325, September.
    3. Merzyn, Wolfram & Ursprung, Heinrich W., 2005. "Voter support for privatizing education: evidence on self-interest and ideology," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 33-58, March.
    4. Feld, Lars P. & Kirchgassner, Gebhard, 2003. "The impact of corporate and personal income taxes on the location of firms and on employment: some panel evidence for the Swiss cantons," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 129-155, January.
    5. Philippe Aghion, 2005. "Growth and Institutions," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 32(1), pages 3-18, March.
    6. Acemoglu, Daron & Johnson, Simon & Robinson, James A., 2005. "Institutions as a Fundamental Cause of Long-Run Growth," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 6, pages 385-472, Elsevier.
    7. Thomas David & André Mach, 2006. "Institutions and Economic Growth: The Successful Experience of Switzerland (1870-1950)," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2006-101, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    8. Allen, Robert C., 2001. "The Great Divergence in European Wages and Prices from the Middle Ages to the First World War," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 411-447, October.
    9. Peter Kugler & Beatrice Weder, 2004. "International Portfolio Holdings and Swiss Franc Asset Returns," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 140(III), pages 301-325, September.
    10. World Bank, 2007. "World Development Indicators 2007," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 8150.
    11. António Afonso & Ludger Schuknecht & Vito Tanzi, 2005. "Public sector efficiency: An international comparison," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 123(3), pages 321-347, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nirvikar Singh, 2016. "Breaking the Mould: Thoughts on Punjab’s Future Economic Development," India Studies in Business and Economics, in: Lakhwinder Singh & Nirvikar Singh (ed.), Economic Transformation of a Developing Economy, edition 1, chapter 0, pages 451-466, Springer.
    2. Singh, Nirvikar, 2008. "India’s Development Strategy: Accidents, Design and Replicability," MPRA Paper 12453, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. James L. Butkiewicz & Halit Yanikkaya, 2011. "Institutions and the Impact of Government Spending on Growth," Journal of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(2), pages 319-341, November.
    2. Leonardo M. Klüppel & Lamar Pierce & Jason A. Snyder, 2018. "Perspective—The Deep Historical Roots of Organization and Strategy: Traumatic Shocks, Culture, and Institutions," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(4), pages 702-721, August.
    3. Sugimoto, Yoshiaki & Nakagawa, Masao, 2011. "Endogenous trade policy: Political struggle in the growth process," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 12-29, February.
    4. L. Kamran Bilir, 2014. "Patent Laws, Product Life-Cycle Lengths, and Multinational Activity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(7), pages 1979-2013, July.
    5. Burret, Heiko T. & Feld, Lars P. & Schaltegger, Christoph A., 2022. "Fiscal federalism and economic performance new evidence from Switzerland," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    6. van Bavel, Bas, 2016. "The Invisible Hand?: How Market Economies have Emerged and Declined Since AD 500," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199608133.
    7. Madsen, Jakob B. & Robertson, Peter E. & Ye, Longfeng, 2019. "Malthus was right: Explaining a millennium of stagnation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 51-68.
    8. Susana Martins & Francisco Veiga, 2014. "Government size, composition of public expenditure, and economic development," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 21(4), pages 578-597, August.
    9. Robert C. Allen, 2008. "A Review of Gregory Clark's A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(4), pages 946-973, December.
    10. Pessino, Carola & Izquierdo, Alejandro & Vuletin, Guillermo, 2018. "Better Spending for Better Lives: How Latin America and the Caribbean Can Do More with Less," IDB Publications (Books), Inter-American Development Bank, number 9152, November.
    11. Piatkowski,Marcin, 2013. "Poland's new golden age : shifting from Europe's periphery to its center," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6639, The World Bank.
    12. Eicher, Theo S. & Schreiber, Till, 2010. "Structural policies and growth: Time series evidence from a natural experiment," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 169-179, January.
    13. Marattin, Luigi & Marzo, Massimiliano & Zagaglia, Paolo, 2013. "Distortionary tax instruments and implementable monetary policy," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 219-243.
    14. Jean-Pierre Danthine & Samuel Danthine, 2018. "On the rewards to international investing: a safe haven currency perspective," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 154(1), pages 1-12, December.
    15. Gani, Azmat & Scrimgeour, Frank, 2014. "Modeling governance and water pollution using the institutional ecological economic framework," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 363-372.
    16. De Geest, Lawrence R. & Kingsley, David C., 2021. "Norm enforcement with incomplete information," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 189(C), pages 403-430.
    17. Harashima, Taiji, 2017. "Should a Government Fiscally Intervene in a Recession and, If So, How?," MPRA Paper 78053, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Sebastian Galiani & Daniel Heymann & Carlos Dabus & Fernando Tohme, 2005. "Land-Rich Economies, Education and Economic Development," Working Papers 85, Universidad de San Andres, Departamento de Economia, revised Dec 2005.
    19. Oleg Badunenko & Daniel Henderson & Romain Houssa, 2014. "Significant drivers of growth in Africa," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 42(3), pages 339-354, December.
    20. Sascha O. Becker & Ludger Woessmann, 2009. "Was Weber Wrong? A Human Capital Theory of Protestant Economic History," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(2), pages 531-596.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Competition; Democracy; Economic development; History of economics; Institutional economics; International trade;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:rp2009-25. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Siméon Rapin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/widerfi.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.