SOEP People - A Conversation with Rainer Winkelmann

Rainer Winkelmann is Professor of Economics at the University of Zurich. He studied economics at the University of Konstanz, Paris IX-Dauphine, and Washington University in St. Louis, and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Munich (1993). He has taught at Dartmouth College, USA, and the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, and was a visiting professor at Harvard University, Syracuse University, and UCLA. His research is in micro-econometrics with applications to social policy issues in the fields of labor, health, and well-being. He is a member of the DIW Berlin Scientific Advisory Board and chaired the SOEP Survey Committee up to the end of 2016. His research on unemployment and happiness using SOEP data led to his groundbreaking 1998 paper “Why are the unemployed so unhappy?” (written jointly by Liliana Winkelmann), which conclusively demonstrated—for the first time—that unemployment makes people unhappy. It is the most widely cited paper in the history of the SOEP.