SOEPpapers

Ethnic Identity and Immigrant Homeownership

Immigrants are much less likely to own their homes than natives, even after controlling for a broad range of life-cycle and socio-economic characteristics and housing market conditions. This paper extends the analysis of immigrant housing tenure choice by explicitly accounting for ethnic identity as a potential influence on the homeownership decision, using a two-dimensional model of ethnic identity ...

Staatsbürgerschaft als Ressource bei der Heirat ausländischer Frauen: eine Analyse mit Daten des Sozio-oekonomischen Panel

Der Beitrag untersucht, welche Faktoren dazu führen, dass deutsche Männer Frauen aus dem ökonomisch schwächeren Ausland heiraten. Aus allgemeinen Partnerwahltheorien (Austauschtheorie, ökonomische Theorie der Familie) werden zwei Hypothesen abgeleitet. 1. Geringe physische und soziale Attraktivität sowie schlechte Gelegenheiten auf dem deutschen Heiratsmarkt begünstigen die Heirat mit einer Frau aus ...

The Set-Point Theory of Well-Being Needs Replacing: On the Brink of a Scientific Revolution?

Set-point theory has dominated the field of subjective well-being (SWB). It has served as a classic Kuhn research paradigm, being extended and refined for thirty years totake in new results. The central plank of the theory is that adult set-points do not change, except just temporarily in the face of major life events. There was always some "discordant data", including evidence that some events are ...

Gesundheit im Lebenslauf: zur relativen Bedeutung von Selektions- gegenüber Kausaleffekten am Beispiel des Familienstands

In diesem Beitrag wird der relative Anteil von Selektions- gegenüber Kausaleffekten bei den Gesundheitsunterschieden zwischen Verheirateten und Ledigen untersucht. Mit den Daten des Sozio-ökonomischen Panel (SOEP) werden Mehrzustands-Sterbetafeln berechnet, um sowohl Wechsel zwischen Gesundheitszuständen als auch Wechsel zwischen den Familienständen simultan im Lebensverlauf zu bestimmen. Dabei zeigt ...

To Claim or Not to Claim: Estimating Non-take-up of Social Assistance in Germany and the Role of Measurement Error

Using representative micro data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) for the year 2002, we analyse non-take-up behaviour of Social Assistance (SA) inGermany. According to our simulation as much as 67 percent of the eligible population did not claim SA in that year which is slightly higher than reported in previous work. We particularly emphasize the role of measurement error in estimating ...

Erbschaftsteuerreform: gleichmäßige Vermögenserfassung und niedrigere Steuersätze statt selektiver Besteuerung

Die Erbschaft- und Schenkungsteuer muss grundlegend reformiert werden. Grund- und Betriebsvermögen sollen nach dem Ertragswertverfahren bewertet werden. Das bedeutet eine deutliche Annäherung an die Verkehrswerte, macht jedoch das Besteuerungsverfahren aufwändiger und streitanfälliger. Ein moderater Freibetrag für Betriebsvermögen sowie Stundungsregelungen für die Steuerbelastung reichen aus, um Probleme ...

From Bottom to Top: The Entire Distribution of Market Income in Germany, 1992-2001

We analyze the distribution and concentration of market incomes in Germany in the period 1992 to 2001 on the basis of an integrated data set of individual tax returns and the German Socio-Economic Panel. The unique feature of this integrated data set is that it encompasses the whole spectrum of the population, from the very poor to the very rich. We find a modest increase in overall inequality of market ...

The Marginal Utility of Income

In normative public economics it is crucial to know how fast the marginal utility of income declines as income increases. One needs this parameter for cost-benefit analysis, for optimal taxation and for the (Atkinson) measurement of inequality. We estimate this parameter using four large cross-sectional surveys of subjective happiness and two panel surveys. Altogether, the data cover over 50 countries ...

Item Non-response and Imputation of Annual Labor Income in Panel Surveys from a Cross-National Perspective

Using data on annual individual labor income from three representative panel datasets (German SOEP, British BHPS, Australian HILDA) we investigate a) the selectivity of item non-response (INR) and b) the impact of imputation as a prominent post-survey means to cope with this type of measurement error on prototypical analyses (earnings inequality, mobility and wage regressions) in a cross-national setting. ...

Germans in Germany's Ethnic Neighborhoods

In contrast to most research on the effects on residents of living in an ethnic neighborhood, this paper explores how living within an ethnic neighborhood affects members of the dominant ethnic group - in this case Germans - rather than the minorities that define it. The results indicate that Germans living within ethnic neighborhoods are less well off financially than their peers in other parts of ...

Measuring Ethnic Identity and Its Impact on Economic Behavior

The paper advocates for a new measure of the ethnic identity of migrants, models its determinants and explores its explanatory power for various types of their economic performance. The ethnosizer, a measure of the intensity of a person's ethnic identity, is constructed from information on the following elements: language, culture, societal interaction, history of migration, and ethnic self-identification. ...

Benefit-Entitlement Effects and the Duration of Unemployment: An Ex-ante Evaluation of Recent Labour Market Reforms in Germany

We analyse benefit-entitlement effects and the likely impact of the recent reform of the unemployment compensation system on the duration of unemployment in Germany on the basis of a flexible discrete-time hazard rate model estimated on pre-reform data from the German Socioeconomic Panel. We find (i) relatively strong benefit-entitlement effects for the unemployed who are eligible to means-tested unemployment ...

The Happiness Gains from Sorting and Matching in the Labor Market

Sorting of people on the labor market not only assures the most productive use of valuable skills but also generates individual utility gains if people experience an optimal match between job characteristics and their preferences. Based on individual data on subjective well-being it is possible to assess these latter gains from matching. We introduce a two-equation ordered probit model with endogenous ...

Introducing Family Tax Splitting in Germany: How Would It Affect the Income Distribution, Work Incentives and Household Welfare?

We analyze the effects of three alternative proposals to reform the taxation of families relative to the current German system of joint taxation of couples and child allowances: a French-type family splitting and two full family splitting proposals. The empirical analysis of the effects of these proposals on the income distribution and on work incentives is based on a behavioral micro-simulation model ...

Which Progress for Poverty Studies Can We Expect from New Large Data Sources?

Verteilungseffekte der öffentlichen Finanzierung der Hochschulbildung in Deutschland: eine Längsschnittbetrachtung auf der Basis des Sozio-oekonomischen Panels

Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht die Verteilungswirkungen der Hochschulfinanzierung im Längsschnitt. Die Leistungen, die Hochschulabsolventen in Form der Hochschulbildung erhalten, werden den hochschulbezogenen (Steuer-)Lasten der Hochschulabsolventen gegenübergestellt. Es zeigt sich, dass Hochschulabsolventen von positiven Nettoeffekten der öffentlichen Hochschulfinanzierung profitieren, da sie ...

Does Money Buy Higher Schooling? Evidence from Secondary School Track Choice in Germany

The German schooling system selects children into different secondary school tracks already at a very early stage in life. School track choice heavily influences choices and opportunities later in life. It has often been observed that secondary schooling achievements display a strong correlation with parental income. We use sibling fixed effects models and information on a natural experiment in order ...

Circular Migration: Counts of Exits and Years away from the Host Country

The economic literature has largely overlooked the importance of repeat and circular migration. The paper studies this behavior by analyzing the number of exits and the total number of years away from the host country using count data models and panel data from Germany. More than 60% of migrants from the guestworker countries are indeed repeat or circular migrants. Migrants from European Union member ...

Self-Productivity in Early Childhood

Self-productivity is a crucial feature in the process of skill formation. It means that skills and health acquired at one stage in the life cycle enhance skills and health formation at later stages. This paper presents an empirical investigation of self-productivity in early childhood in Germany. The data are drawn from the mother-child questionnaire of the German Socio-Economic Panel for the birth ...

Analyzing the Labor Market Activity of Immigrant Families in Germany

This paper analyzes whether immigrant families facing credit constraints adopt a family investment strategy wherein, upon arrival, an immigrant spouse invests in host country-specific human capital while the other partner works to finance the family's current consumption. Using data for West Germany, we do not find evidence for such a specialization strategy. We further examine the labor supply and ...