Work

Cross-border shopping: Evidence and welfare implications for Switzerland

Year: 2024

Type: article

Abstract: Consumers access foreign goods by purchasing them domestically or shopping abroad. We present new facts on cross-border shopping by Swiss households showing, for example, that prices of identical products are lower in neighboring countries, cross-border shopping shares fall with distance to the border, and price gaps and cross-border shopping shares rose following the 2015 Swiss Franc appreciation. We use a simple model of cross-border shopping to quantify how variation across space in cross-border shopping results in heterogeneous changes in cost-of-living in response to changes in international prices such as the 2015 Swiss Franc Appreciation and the 2020 Covid-19-related closing of the border.

Source: Journal of International Economics

DOI: 10.1016/j.jinteco.2024.104015

Authors: Ariel Burstein, Sarah Lein, Jonathan Vogel

Institutions: University of California, Los Angeles, University of Basel, Swiss Finance Institute

Language: English

Topic: Global trade and economics

Subfield: General Economics, Econometrics and Finance

Field: Economics, Econometrics and Finance

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,760

OpenAlex ID: W4403539007

FWCI: 5.531

Cites: 24

Cited by: 8

Related to: 10