Seiko, Swatch, and the Swiss Watch Industry (with Aled Maclean-Jones)
2/16/20261 hr 1 min
How did an industry survive a technology that should have made it obsolete? Aled Maclean-Jones explains to EconTalk's Russ Roberts how Japanese quartz watches nearly wiped out Swiss watchmaking with cheaper, more accurate alternatives--and how the Swiss redefined the value of a watch to recover market dominance. Maclean-Jones discusses the Japanese innovations that led to the Swiss industry's collapse; the brilliant decision by a pair of Swiss mavericks to change the narrative around mechanical watches; and the consolidation and standardization of Swiss watchmaking undertaken by Swatch founder Nicolas Hayek.
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First 90 secondsRuss Roberts· Host0:00
[upbeat music] Welcome to EconTalk, Conversations for the Curious, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty. I'm your host, Russ Roberts, of Shalem College in Jerusalem and Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Go to econtalk.org, where you can subscribe, comment on this episode, and find links and other information related to today's conversation. You'll also find our archives with every episode we've done going back to two thousand and six. Our email address is mail@econtalk.org. We'd love to hear from you. [upbeat music] Today is December twenty-ninth, twenty twenty-five, and my guest is the writer Aled Maclan Jones. His Substack is Rake's Digress, which is a play on Rake's Progress, I hope.
Aled Maclean-Jones· Guest0:49
[laughing] It is.
Russ Roberts· Host0:50
Our topic, our topic today is a wonderful essay of his on how Japanese innovation disrupted the s-- the watch industry, particularly the Swiss watch industry, and yet somehow Swiss entrepreneurs found a way to stay alive. Aled, welcome to EconTalk.
Aled Maclean-Jones· Guest1:08
Um, thanks very much, uh, Russ. I've been a listener for a long time, so it's a real pleasure to be here.
Russ Roberts· Host1:12
Great to have you. Y- your essay appeared in the publication Works in Progress, uh, which listeners can also explore. We'll link to it. The title of your essay is "The Survival of Swiss Watches," and the essay and the story you tell begins in nineteen eighty-four, uh, with two men