bout a year ago, I spoke at a conference in Europe that attracted a lot of very rich people from all over the continent, as well as a lot of people who manage money for high-net-worth individuals. What made this conference remarkable was not the presentations, though they were generally quite interesting. The stunning part […]

Greetings from Montreux, Switzerland, on the shores of Lake Geneva. There aren’t many places where palm trees are framed by snow-capped mountains. Heck, even I managed to take a decent photo. But let’s shift back to the world of public policy. Every time I’m in Switzerland, my admiration for the country increases. Here are five […]

The United States, Canada, and Switzerland are the only developed nations that have some degree of genuine federalism (Germany and Australia don’t count by my standards), and Switzerland is the only country where the central government is smaller than the local/regional governments. This is one of the reasons why Switzerland is so admirable, as partly […]

I’ve always had a soft spot for Switzerland. The nation’s decentralized structure shows the value of federalism, both as a means of limiting the size of government and as a way of promoting tranquility in a nation with several languages, religions, and ethnic groups. I also admire Switzerland’s valiant attempt to preserve financial privacy in […]

After being in 1st place in 2007 and 2008, America dropped behind Switzerland in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report in 2009. The 2010 ranking was just released, and the United States has tumbled two more spots to 4th place, behind Switzerland, Sweden, and Singapore. I’m not a complete fan of the World Economic […]

This story from Business Week warmed my heart. Switzerland’s cantons are competing to create better tax policy, and this is attracting companies seeking to escape the kleptocracies elsewhere in Europe. This shows the value of tax competition (imagine how bad taxes would be in Germany and France if politicians in those nations didn’t have to […]

The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has put together another rigged hearing to demonize low-tax jurisdictions. Entitled “Tax Haven Banks and U.S. Compliance – Obtaining the Names of U.S. Clients with Swiss Accounts,” the latest hearing is part of a broader campaign to pressure Switzerland to weaken its human-rights protections of financial privacy. The staged hearing comes on the heels of the Justice Department’s unprecedented demand that the Swiss bank UBS turn over 52,000 names and accounts of American investors – even though the United States and Switzerland already have treaties that govern the sharing of information in cases of matters such as tax fraud.