Multinationals and Varieties of Capitalism: When U.S. Giants Stepped into the Swiss Coordinated Labor Market in the 1950s

Abstract

This working paper investigates unintended consequences of U.S. FDI in Switzerland in the 1950s-1960s: the increased competition that U.S. firms generated within the national labor market and the challenge their hiring practices constituted for the institutional settings in which labor relations were embedded. It therefore contributes to two bodies of literature: one that deals with the arrival of U.S. firms in Europe after 1945 and another that tackles the contribution of business history to the variety of capitalism (VOC) scholarship.

Keywords: multinationals, capitalism, business ＆ government relations, foreign direct investment, immigration policy, history, Switzerland, Americanization, R＆D, labor history, labor market institutions, tax havens, USA, business interest association, lobbying