This month, Hannah Wise looks at the latest Avenir Suisse study about housing with a focus on facts and figures that get lost in the public debate. Take affordable housing for example. In this case, if rents were to be regulated so that more people could afford housing it wouldn’t help the demand situation. More people would want to move to popular areas like city centres, creating yet more demand on this kind of housing.
Calls for increasingly drastic interventions in the housing market are inefficient from an economic point of view, have a random impact, and burden the economy. They can also be counterproductive for tenants. These are the findings of a new Avenir Suisse study.
Innovation is crucial to the success of Switzerland as a business location. But what share do foreigners have in the Swiss innovative strength? For his new publication on labor migration, Patrick Leisibach collected new data. Making better use of the global talent pool can help Switzerland to remain “innovation world champion.”
Contributing to the development of the successful Swiss model is Avenir Suisse’s core task. To this end, the think tank must constantly evolve. The change in personnel at the head of the think tank provides an opportunity to review existing structures and vehicles and rethink them as needed.
Real bracket creep is a continuous increase in taxes for everyone. Unlike “normal” bracket creep, real bracket creep is not automatically compensated. Politicians and administrators have so far shown little interest in automatically compensating for real bracket creep ‒ or even in creating transparency about the phenomenon. All the more reason why it’s about time to change this state of affairs!
