On the SNB website, Lukas Heim and Christoph Kappeler explain the integration of the financial account, the international investment position and the Swiss financial accounts.
On the SNB website, Lukas Heim and Christoph Kappeler explain the integration of the financial account, the international investment position and the Swiss financial accounts.
In a CEPR discussion paper, Cedric Tille argues that Switzerland’s international linkages have been transformed over the last decade. Abstract:
Over the last decade, the economic linkages between Switzerland and the rest of the world have been transformed. First, merchanting and the chemical industry account for an increasing share of international trade, with chemicals exports expanding robustly in recent years despite the European crisis and the strong Swiss franc. Second, the nature of international financial integration has changed. While private investors drove Switzerland’s financial flows and net foreign assets before the financial crisis, the foreign reserves accumulation by the Swiss National Bank has been playing a major role since. Third, asset prices and foreign exchange movements led to substantial capital losses in foreign assets which fully absorbed the surplus on the current account. Finally, the crisis has weakened the role of foreign trade as an engine of growth and narrowed it across sectors.
In the NZZ,
The Icelandic government announced its strategy of liberalizing the country’s capital account after seven years. Press statement of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs; FT report by Richard Milne and Jeremy Grant.
Update (18 June 2015)
The Economist reviews Iceland’s recent economic history and the planned steps to liberalize the capital account.