Scant Data on Wealth, Personal Income : Swiss Keep Their Own Accounts Secret

Inquiring minds in Switzerland will find it easier to find out how much ice-cream, and what flavor, Swiss people consume on average each year than to unearth detailed statistics about personal incomes.

Known for its clockwork precision, Switzerland surprisingly lags behind other developed countries when it comes to quantifying national and personal economics.

“Compared with other Western industrial countries, our economic statistics are relatively weak,” a spokesman for the Federal Statistics Office said, though he said changes in the data collection system should mean improvements by 1992.

In a study of poverty in Switzerland, sociologist Brigitte Buhmann wrote, “No area of Swiss economic statistics is so sparse as that of personal income and the distribution of wealth.”

It is still impossible to glean daily turnover figures for the Zurich Stock Exchange, although new computers will soon remedy that.

Balance of Payments

Until recently, Switzerland never compiled its balance of payments, a key economic indicator that measures the flow of goods and money in and out of the country.

The general weakness of economic statistics contrasts sharply with the range of minutiae gathered by public and private agencies throughout the land.

Some of the most obscure facets of daily life are noted, logged and recorded for posterity in this fact-loving nation. Recent reports have brought these tidbits to light:

- The Swiss Accident Insurance Institute recently reported that industrial robots have not killed any Swiss people.

- Drivers last year ran over 6,626 deer, 2,247 foxes and 1,273 jackrabbits, while farm machinery chewed up 1,177 deer, 33 foxes and 429 hares.

- The government Agricultural Information Service called the world’s attention to the fact that the average Swiss cow relieves herself 10 to 12 times every 24 hours. The typical cow pat weights 8.8 ounces and covers an area of 165 square inches.

Provisional figures collected by the Federal Statistics Office show the number of cows has dropped to about 790,000 from 826,200 in 1985 and the pig population has dwindled to 1,922,700 now from 1,988,400. But chickens are flocking to the countryside, their number swelling to 6,229,400 from 5,722,300.

A spokesman said the statistics office conducts its own animal count rather than relying on farmers’ reports. “We are still doing the final count, and that should be ready by the middle to end of October,” he said.

Farmers have fewer misgivings about sharing information than the average Swiss, one economist explained. “They want government subsidies, so they have to show they have more cows than they actually have.”

- Swiss customs officials said they seized 346 crocodile belts, 115 ivory piano keys, 231 pounds of reptile skin shoes, 4,911 lizard watchbands and one pair of turtle skin boots in the first half of this year.

- Vanilla is the favorite Swiss ice cream flavor, followed by strawberry, chocolate and mocha.

The World Health Organization pays homage to Swiss statistics by ranking the country among the world’s best in reporting AIDS cases, a spokesman said.