How a sustainable fiscal policy can be performed in a federal system is not only a Swiss problem but is also discussed in other federal countries like Germany and Austria, and in the European Union. Contrary to most other countries, the Swiss fiscal system is characterised by an extensive fiscal...

The advantages and disadvantages of fiscal federalism are widely discussed in economics and political science. While some authors argue that federalism favors individual initiatives and serves as a market preserving device, others emphasize the dangers arising from an increasing corruption and...

Using Swiss data from 1983 to 2008, this paper investigates whether growth rates of the different measures of the quantity of money and or excess money can be used to forecast inflation. After a preliminary data analysis, money demand relations are specified, estimated and tested. Then,...

Using data of Swiss referenda from 1981 to 1999, this paper presents new empirical results which allow us to discriminate better between the decision and mobilisation hypotheses of electoral participation. First, theoretical considerations which lead to these hypotheses are presented as well as...

Macroeconomic data are indispensable for modern governance, yet it is often unclear how reliable these data are. The production process of macroeconomic data inside the statistical offices is often not very transparent for the general public. Bystanders usually have no choice but to take for...

Nordhaus (2008) has developed a testing strategy for what he calls Baumol's diseases, by which name he designates a number of by-products of structural change that are unwanted from an economic policy perspective. He finds that the U.S. economy is strongly affected by the diseases. This paper...

Towards the end of 2009, the world economy was recovering from its deepest recession since the end of World War II. Most countries around the world took resort to fiscal policy in order to foster this recovery. In this paper, we first discuss the pros and cons of discretionary fiscal policy from...