During her fellowship, Dr. Lea Haller investigated the history of global commodity trade with a focus on Swiss trading companies. Contrary to general assumption, global trade in the modern era was not primarily driven by the imperial powers, but by a bourgeois elite in countries with a high level of global integration and economic interdependence. Switzerland is a case in point. The small, neutral country had a large trading sector since the mid-19th century and is the biggest trading place worldwide today. Its merchanting trade by far exceeded the import and export of the country. Lea’s book Transithandel. Die Rolle des Kleinstaats im globalen Kapitalismus will be published with Suhrkamp in 2019.