REFLEX: Registry of Firms' Life and Exit

Reflex 2025

Istituto di economia politica

Data: 2 settembre 2025 / 11:00 - 18:00

East Campus Lugano; USI Startup Centre

The NRP-77 Sinergia meeting on REFLEX - A Data Platform for the Swiss Commercial Registry (1883-present) brings together researchers and practitioners interested in the study of firms and business groups in Switzerland.

The Data Platform has the objective to recreate the 140-year history of all firms in Switzerland. It will shed lights on the different stages in the life of a company, from its founding to its dissolution (including relocations, changes in legal form, mergers and acquisitions,..), identify all owners and investors, and reconstruct groups of related companies, national or foreign, active in Switzerland.

The event is part of the Sinergia project "Institutional Foundations of Industrialization, Financialization and Globalization of the Swiss Economy. Evidence from 140 Years of the Commercial Registry" (https://data.sn.ch/grants/grant/209465) and the NP 77 "Companies and Tax Competition in the Digital Economy" (https://www.nfp77.ch/en/4WbWzX5KWv6B4hRx/project/companies-and-tax-competition-in-the-digital-economy).

Registration is compulsory (please contact [email protected])

Location: USI Startup Centre, Università della Svizzera italiana, Campus Est (Viganello)

Program
September 2, 2025

11:00 - 11:10	Welcome
11:10 - 12:00	Firm Dynamics over The Long Run REFLEX Team
12:00-13:00	Standing lunch
Session chair: Elliott Ash (ETH)
13:00-14:00	Keynote: Estimating the Value of CEOs in Privately Held Businesses Miklós Koren (Central European University)
14:00-14:30	A Swiss Business Cycle History Based on Text Data Daniel Kaufmann (University of Neuchâtel)
14:30-15:00	Fast Car to Boom and Bust: Transportation Technology and its Causal Effects on Rural Economic Development Christian Ochsner (CERGE-EI Prague)
15:00-15:30	Rosie the Researcher: How Female WWII Hires Changed Science in US Firms Moritz Lubczyk (ROCKWOOL Foundation)
15:30-16:00	Coffee
Session chair: Tina Freyburg (University of St Gallen)
16:00-16:30	The Persistence of Swiss Capitalism Stéphanie Ginalski (University of Lausanne)
16:30-17:00	Brokering International Banking: Board Members of Foreign Banks in Switzerland, 1947-1980 Thibaud Giddey (University of Lausanne)
17:00-17:30	Do Firms Hire Politicians as Directors? Evidence from Close Elections Mark Schelker (University of Fribourg)
17:30-18:00	Locally Similar but Globally Diverse: The Role of Social Foci in Network Fragmentation and Polarization Ivana Smokovic (ETH Zurich)
18:00	Networking aperitif