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Journal ArticleDOI

Capitalism in one country? : Switzerland in the international economy

Peter J. Katzenstein
- 01 Sep 1980 - 
- Vol. 34, Iss: 04, pp 507-540
TLDR
Switzerland offers a view of the past that works as mentioned in this paper, and it is one of the richest countries in the world with a Gross National Product (GNP) of $13,853 per capita.
Abstract
Recent experience confirms an old truth: Switzerland offers a view of the past that works. In 1978 Switzerland was one of the richest countries in the world with a Gross National Product (GNP) of $13,853 per capita. Between 1975 and 1978 it raised the proportion of exports of goods and services in its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from 36 to 44 percent. In 1977 its current account surplus surpassed that of West Germany and was second only to Japan's. Between 1970 and the end of 1979 the Swiss Franc appreciated by about 90 percent on a trade-weighted basis; against the dollar the appreciation was about 120 percent. From a rate of more than 10 percent in 1974 its inflation rate dropped to 1 percent in 1978. Switzerland's official unemployment figures (which do not record the loss of more than 300,000 jobs among foreign workers and women since 1973) are lower than those of all other advanced industrial states. And even though since 1970 government expenditures have increased faster than in any other OECD country, Switzerland's budget deficit was cut by one-third in the midst of a general recession in 1976–1977. Real GDP dropped by more than 7 percent in 1975, which represented one of the largest declines in the OECD and was a much greater drop than had been recorded in any one year in the 1930s; yet, only two years later, in 1977 Switzerland's real GNP increased by 4.3 percent, which exceeded the growth rate of any other OECD member state.

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Citations
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Regimes and the limits of realism: regimes as autonomous variables

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The Politics of Growth: Strategic Interaction and Economic Performance in the Advanced Industrial Democracies, 1974-1980

TL;DR: This paper argued that the impact of the political power of the left and the organization of labor on economic performance among the advanced industrial democracies is conditional upon the relative presence or absence of the two variables.
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The political economy of trade: institutions of protection

TL;DR: In the post-war period, central decision makers took as a lesson from the depression period that short-term political forces should not determine the level of state intervention into the market as discussed by the authors.
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State structure and economic adjustment of the East Asian newly industrializing countries

TL;DR: In this article, an analysis of the economic adjustment policies of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan during the 1970s and 1980s shows that these East Asian newly industrializing countries (NICs) responded to the challenge with industrial adjustment strategies that differed in their degree of intensity of state involvement and emphasis on national control.
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Tariff protection in developed and developing countries: a cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis

TL;DR: In this article, four political models (the international system, rational domestic economic policy, intragovemmental politics, and interest group influence) may explain the cross-national structure of average nominal levels of tariffs on manufactures.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI

Three approaches to the measurement of power in international relations

TL;DR: There are three main approaches to the observation and measurement of power: control over resources, control over actors, and control over events and outcomes as discussed by the authors, and the third approach is better suited to situations in which interdependence and collective action can be derived from the third.
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