This paper quantifies the consequences of a better match between decision-making and cost-bearing responsibilities in the provision of compulsory schooling in Switzerland. Specifically, I investigate whether the elimination of cost-sharing based on effective local expenditures for teachers sets incentives for cost-savings among municipalities. This hypothesis is tested through two local-level panel analyses in the Swiss cantons of Luzern and St.Gallen. The results provide empirical evidence that a substantial increase in the local cost share of teacher expenditures does, on average, not lead to an economically relevant and statistically significant reduction in municipal spending on teachers per student. However, the larger the municipality, the higher the estimated savings, which is evidence that small municipalities face only little scope for cost reductions because they are severely constrained by cantonal policies on class formation. I discuss several residual reasons that might account for limited consequences, including imperfect labor markets for teachers and the political economy of teacher employment.
Different consumption patterns have been linked to different levels of responsibility for current greenhouse gas (ghg) emissions, and it is well established that the affluent are responsible for higher levels of global ghg emission than are the poor. Here I couple a life cycle assessment of consumer goods with household survey data about consumption patterns to arrive at household level responsibility for global ghg emissions by consumption category. This allows me to provide a detailed analysis of how different consumption categories contribute to this responsibility. From this, I offer insights into how this information can be used for designing policies that create equitable outcomes. I conclude that the distributional impacts of ghg pricing with revenue recycling will remain unproblematic as climate policy continues to cover more ghgs from more regions. If it is desired that high-income households make a bigger contribution to the emissions reduction effort than others, focusing climate policy on transport (high confidence), eating out, and clothing (both with lower confidence) may provide avenues for achieving that. This is the case, since responsibility for ghg emissions from these consumption categories increases faster with income than it does for other goods.
The restaurant industry has a high failure rate and predicting restaurant bankruptcy is an important task to mitigate economic losses. Restaurant consumer review data contains rich information and influences future restaurant demand. We investigate the value of publicly available data for predicting bankruptcies of individual restaurants. Our unique data set includes alternative consumer data from the two most frequently used online restaurant platforms in Switzerland and official business data from Swiss government websites. In evaluating the accuracy of predictive bankruptcy probabilities, we quantify the potential of the alternative data sources and we analyze the relevance of novel predictor variables. We find that alternative consumer data is relevant for restaurant bankruptcy prediction and the highest prediction accuracy is achieved when alternative data and traditional business data are combined.
Using granular customs data, we construct a counterfactual of the evolution of Swiss goods exports under the premise that the minimum exchange rate policy would have been continued. We study the adjustment dynamics of aggregate and sectoral goods exports due to the exchange rate shock in January 2015 and examine potential differences between sectors. While Swiss total nominal exports drop in Swiss Franc, they increase in Euro. In real quantities, total exports remain largely unaffected indicating a high degree of resilience of the Swiss export industry. At the sectoral level, we observe a heterogeneous adjustment of exports consistent with varying degrees of supply-side adjustment flexibility.
There is an increasing demand for understanding how international shocks affect regions within a country differently. We study the short-term effects of a global energy price shock on output and inflation in the Swiss cantons using input–output techniques. Our results show that the induced inflation and contraction of output are small compared to other countries, indicating that Switzerland is generally resilient to price changes of fossil fuels. This is due to the low dependence of Switzerland on oil and gas and because of the large value added share of other activities. The responses of the cantons are heterogeneous, with Ticino, Neuchâtel and Basel-Country being most affected owing to their specialization in fossil fuel-dependent sectors with strong reliance on international inputs. Although the source of the responses to the shock relates to the energy sector, the contribution of other sectors through regional international linkages is larger as a result of an intermediates’ price spiral in all cantons. The results emphasize the informational gains from data on sectoral structures and global value chain integration at the regional level.
