The first, and possibly the most important, economic fact about Switzerland is that it is a very rich country. No visitor to any Swiss town can fail to notice the glitter of wealth from behind shop windows. Everything looks solid, well-made and expensive. In late 1973, the National-Zeitung published figures which gave statistical support to the impression of the eye. In terms of gross national product per head of population, Switzerland was then the richest country in the world (Switzerland $6,890, Sweden $6,510, Federal Republic of Germany $6,260, USA $6,090). Twenty years later in its 1993 report the World Bank arrived at the same result. Swiss income in dollars per head stood at $36,410, ahead of Luxemburg at $35,580 and Japan in third place at $31,450. Exchange rate fluctuations distort these figures, but Switzerland is one of the three or four richest countries in the world, no matter how ‘rich’ is defined.

The Swiss have been rich for a long time. Pierre Bairoch shows that from 1880 to 1950 only the United Kingdom had a higher gross national product per head of population than Switzerland. On average in this period Switzerland was one-fifth richer than Belgium, France and the Low Countries and one-quarter richer than the average for Europe as a whole. Habits associated with the acquisition and maintenance of wealth go back well before 1880 but reliable statistics do not. Certainly chronicles record the presence of rich men, but individual wealth surrounded by poverty marks much of the Third World today. How rich were the Swiss in the Middle Ages?