Coming together but staying apart: continuity and change in the Austrian and Swiss varieties of capitalism

This paper provides an overview of continuity and change in the Swiss and Austrian political economies over the last 20 years. After outlining the different institutional foundations of economic governance in both countries (fragmented state, constrained executive power and bourgeois dominance in Switzerland, centralised state, stronger executive power and strong labour in Austria), the paper assesses general trends in economic policy and economic performance over the last 20 years. In a second section, the paper assesses continuity and change across different spheres of the economy: economic regulation and corporate governance, labour market policy and industrial relations, and welfare state reform. Despite a general trend towards a more market-driven economic model, different patterns of change can be observed both between countries and different spheres of the economy.