The development of ski areas and its relation to the Alpine economy in Switzerland

Pascal Troxler (), Marcus Roller () and Monika Bandi Tanner ()
Additional contact information
Pascal Troxler: University of Bern
Marcus Roller: Intervista AG
Monika Bandi Tanner: University of Bern

Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, 2024, vol. 160, issue 1, 1-20

Abstract: Abstract Cableways alleviate access to the Alps and were crucial in establishing the skiing tourism boom of the after-war years. Moreover, cableway operators employ a large share of residents, are complemented by tourism-related services and are therefore a key economic pillar in otherwise laggard regions. We exploit comprehensive historical data of all ever-built cableways in Switzerland linked to income and population data to show how much ski area access benefits the municipalities’ economy compared to similar municipalities without such access on their territory. Evaluating difference-in-differences, we find that opening a ski area between 1940 and 1980 is related to economic growth that persists until today. Particularly, it attracted new residents and created more productive employment opportunities in tourism-related services, thereby raising incomes and tax revenues. Our results contribute to the debate of what economic risks municipalities with access to ski areas face once the decreasing snowpack forces a ski area to close.

Keywords: Tourism development; Economic development; Regional economics; Historical ski area data; Climate change exposure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N74 N94 O18 R11 Z32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1186/s41937-024-00127-0 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sjecst:v:160:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1186_s41937-024-00127-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/41937

DOI: 10.1186/s41937-024-00127-0

Access Statistics for this article

Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics is currently edited by Marius Brülhart

More articles in Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics from Springer, Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().