On the efficiency of a public insurance monopoly: The case of housing insurance in Switzerland

Abstract

Economists often claim that they have no or at best a minor impact on economic policy: other disciplines like law or political science are assumed to have much more impact.129 This is insofar true as academic economics is often of little help to solve real economic policy problems, while other disciplines provide answers to the politicians' questions which seem to be much straightforward in this respect. On the other hand, in recent decades, economic ideas have changed the world in a dramatic way. Since the Second World War, we see a continuous increase in international trade and a tremendous reduction of trade barriers, in Europe especially within the ever increasing European Union, but also on a world wide scale first through the GATT and since 1995 through the WTO. Moreover, since the eighties, a wave of deregulation and privatisation of former public enterprises gushed over the Western industrialised countries. Its aim was and is the reduction of the political sphere and the strengthening of the private sphere. In the 'Washington Consensus', this strategy was also recommended to the developing world. © 2007 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.