The growth of the public sector in Switzerland

Switzerland has experienced a rapid expansion of its public sector, which is not in line with the traditional image of the country as primarily a market economy and not a welfare state. The public sector may be decomposed into allovative and redistributive components. Both types of public sector programme have grown faster than the rate of economic growth, but it is especially the redistributive programmes that have expanded very rapidly. The Swiss welfare state is one of the largest in Western Europe today, and it presents a problem of financing for both the federal and the cantonal governments. Allocative programmes grew much faster up to the oil crisis than after 1974, but redistributive programmes still display considerable increases. At certain specific time-points decisions were taken that increased public expenditures considerably, meaning that the expansion process of the welfare state has not taken a continuous linear process of growth.