Die vorliegende Dissertation besteht aus vier Kapiteln. Das erste Kapitel zeigt unter Verwendung von Schweizer Firmendaten, dass eine Senkung von Handelsbarrieren zwischen der Schweiz und der Europäischen Union zu Unternehmen führt, die einen geringeren Grad an vertikaler Integration...

This paper examines the role of geography and culture in explaining bankruptcy. We adopt survival analyses to model the bankruptcy risk of a firm, allowing for time-varying covariates. Based on a large sample from all major sectors of the Swiss economy, we find the following results: (i) The...

This paper estimates the effect of trade liberalization on growth, using plant-level data from Switzerland. We employ a natural experiment framework to quantify the effect of a bundle of treaties liberalizing trade between Switzerland and the EU enacted in June 2002 ("Bilateral Agreements I") on...

This paper models payment evasion as a source of profit by letting the firm choose the purchase price and the fine imposed on detected payment evaders. For a given price and fine, the consumers purchase, evade payment, or choose the outside option. We show that payment evasion leads to a form of...