Seiko, Swatch, and the Swiss Watch Industry (with Aled Maclean-Jones)

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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Seiko, Swatch, and the Swiss Watch Industry (with Aled Maclean-Jones) is an episode from EconTalk by Library of Economics and Liberty.

This episode is 01:01:29 long.

This episode was published on Feb 16, 2026.

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