Measurement error in historical data distorts descriptive analyses based on binary classifications. Modern replications of deficiencies in retrospective CPI estimates for the 19th century show that measurement issues cause misclassification of inflationary and deflationary episodes. We therefore...

Because macroeconomic data is published with a substantial delay, assessing the health of the economy during the rapidly evolving Covid-19 crisis is challenging. We develop a fever curve for the Swiss economy using publicly available daily financial market and news data. The indicator can be...

This paper provides novel evidence on downward nominal wage rigidities and their allocative effects in Switzerland. We match individual wages from a bi-annual firm survey with information on annual income and employment from social security register data. We relevant downward nominal wage...

This paper identifies the effect of variation in government-backed loan supply on unemployment exploiting regional variation in the Swiss COVID-19 lending program. The rules of the program introduce variation in loan supply across Cantons. This variation helps disentangling supply from demand...

We study domestic and international drivers of long-term interest rates using newly compiled financial market data for Switzerland starting in 1852. We use a time-varying parameter vector autoregressive model to estimate long-term trends in nominal interest rates, exchange rate growth, and...

We identify the dynamic causal effects of interest rate floor shocks, exploiting regular auctions of Swiss central bank debt securities (SNB Bills). A theoretical model shows that variation in the volume of, and yield on, central bank debt changes the interest rate floor. In addition, the model...

We analyze export price adjustment of Swiss manufacturing firms using a novel data set of matched export, import, and domestic prices. After a large, unexpected, and permanent appreciation of the Swiss franc, export prices set in domestic currency fell less than export prices set in foreign...

We propose a two-step approach to estimate multi-dimensional monetary policy shocks and their causal effects requiring only daily financial market data and policy events. First, we combine a heteroscedasticity-based identification scheme with recursive zero restrictions along the term structure...

Using newly collected discount rate data for six Swiss cities, we find no evidence of increasing integration during a 30-year period of lightly regulated free banking. We attribute this to two structural issues: banks had incentives to protect their local monopolies, and the inherent instability...