SNSF Sinergia project, accepted for funding in June 2022
Summary
In the last two centuries, Switzerland has transformed from a relatively under-developed, with a mostly closed, agricultural economy to a country with highly export-oriented, high-tech industries. This project analyzes the institutional foundations for the Swiss economic success story. We explore how shifts in taxation, regulation, and ownership structure have propelled the evolution in industrialization, financialization, and globalization. To pursue these substantive goals, we produce a new historical dataset describing 140 years of Swiss business activity.
Based on daily publications recording granular business events -- foundings, relocations, incorporations, acquisitions, bankruptcies, etc. -- since 1883 we build histories of specific firms (corporate entities) and people (human entities) by matching them across events over time. The data collection is motivated by three substantive questions in which economics, law, and political science share a common interest. First, we analyze variation in the tax systems across municipalities and over time to understand how these local taxes influenced firm location decisions and firm outcomes. Second, we use the differences across cantons in commercial laws and regulations to see what legal rules led to more or less industrialization and financialization. Third, we explore structures of ownership in Swiss firms across sectors and over time -- including the public-private aspect, family relationships, cultural factors, and politics.
The project is conducted by an interdisciplinary consortium of computer scientists, economists, lawyers, and political scientists. Yet and beyond this project, the new dataset of Swiss economic history will be available for scholars across multiple disciplines. Alongside the statistical data, we build a searchable data platform usable by qualitative researchers, policymakers, journalists, and the wider public.
Project Information
Research team
- UniSG: Tina Freyburg and Anna Stünzi
- ETH Zurich: Elliot Ash
- Università Svizzera Italiana: Raphael Parchet and Marco d’Ambros
- University of Liège: Malka Guillot
Start date: September 2022
Duration of funding: 4 years