OBELIS Swiss Economic Elites

There are two samples of Switzerland's economic elite positions on SWISSUbase: 1) Corporate elites We included the top directors of the 110 largest Swiss firms, including the Chairman of the Board of directors, the CEO and – when they exist – the Delegate of the Board. In addition, we included the members of the board of directors of these firms. The data covers eleven dates: 1890, 1910, 1929, 1937, 1957, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010, 2015 and 2020. 2) Executive committee members of economic interest groups We also collected data on the executive committee members of the seven major economic interest groups: the Swiss Banking Association, Economiesuisse, the Swiss Employers’ Association, the Swiss Trade Association, the Swiss Farmers’ Union, the Swiss Federation of Trade Unions and the Christian National Trade Union Federation of Switzerland.

The data about executive committee members covers eight dates: 1910, 1937, 1957, 1980, 2000, 2010, 2015 and 2020. There were no systematic data collections for the years 1890 and 1929, so we have not included them in this sample.