Switzerland is known for its highly developed direct democracy. However, Swiss women were enfranchised at the federal level only in 1971 and in many cantons even later. We analyze the role of direct democracy in the delayed Swiss enfranchising process by investigating a novel dataset covering...

Die wirtschaftlichen und gesellschaftlichen Erfolge der Schweiz werden oft auf zwei für sie typische politische Institutionen zurückgeführt: direkte Demokratie und Föderalismus. Wir vermuten, dass eine dritte, bisher weitgehend vernachlässigte Institution eine ähnlich wichti- ge Rolle...

In 2003, the retirement age of Swiss construction workers was lowered from 65 to 60. This reform has been intended to improve their health. Our study shows the opposite outcome. The human capital theory suggests that investments in employees' productivity by the employer and the employees...

Universal suffrage is a core element for the functioning of democracy. However, with growing international mobility, an increasing share of the resident population has no suffrage. This paper analyzes the conditions under which domestic citizens are willing to extend suffrage to foreign...

We designed and implemented a survey to capture what scientists from around the world think about immunity certification. Responses from 12,738 scientists were captured and their distribution was tabulated by participants in health science and other fields. Half of the scientists surveyed agree...

The challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic have prompted scientists from different fields to evaluate whether the use of immunity certificates would allow for a safer and faster return to normality. This policy has been recently implemented by Israel (Green Pass) and similar legislation is...