Impacts of Courts on Policy Implementation in a Federal State: Evidence from Disability Insurance in Switzerland

Abstract

Swiss cantons have extensive autonomy in implementing federal laws. This leads to heterogeneity in cantonal practices and policy outputs. This article explores the extent to which courts contribute to the convergence of cantonal outputs. It fo-cuses on the disability insurance benefits granted by cantonal administrations, and on the related judicial rulings by cantonal courts and the Federal Supreme Court. The findings suggest that judgments of the Federal Supreme Court have a limited but positive impact on the harmonization of cantonal outputs when a major policy change is implemented.