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 ...
2007| Simon Luechinger, Alois Stutzer, Rainer Winkelmann
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 ...
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 ...
2007| Sarah Borgloh, Frank Kupferschmidt, Berthold U. Wigger
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 ...
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 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 ...
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 ...
2007| Leilanie Basilio, Thomas K. Bauer, Mathias Sinning
Over the last decades the German education system underwent numerous reforms in order to improve "equality of opportunity", i.e. to guarantee all pupils equal access to higher education. At the same time internationally comparative evidence yields that Germany features particularly low intergenerational mobility with respect to educational attainment. This study investigates the development in intergenerational ...
In diesem Beitrag wird die Entwicklung der Lohnungleichheit in den USA und Deutschland betrachtet. Für Deutschland wird als Datengrundlage die harmonisierte Version des Sozioökonomischen Panels und für die USA die harmonisierte Version der Panel Study of Income Dynamics verwendet. Aufgrund der divergenten ökonomischen Situation in West- und Ostdeutschland werden diese getrennt voneinander betrachtet. ...
Using kernel density estimation we find that over their 1990s business cycles the entire distribution of after-tax (disposable) income moved to the right in the United States and Great Britain while inequality declined. In contrast, Germany and Japan experienced less growth, a rise in inequality and a decline in the middle mass of their distributions that spread mostly to the right, much like the United ...
2007| Richard V. Burkhauser, Takashi Oshio, Ludmila Rovba
Using individual based micro-data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP), I analyze the cyclicality of real wages for male workers within employer-employee matches over the period 1984-2004, and compare different wage measures: the standard hourly wage rate, hourly wage earnings including overtime and bonus payments, and the effective wage, which takes into account not only paid overtime, ...
This paper analyses the savings behaviour of natives and immigrants in Germany. It is argued that uncertainty about future income and legal status (in case of immigrants) is a key component in the determination of the level of precautionary savings. Using the German Socio-economic Panel data it is shown that, although immigrants have lower levels of savings and are less likely to have regular savings ...
Unemployment causes significant losses in the quality of life. In addition to reducing individual income, it also creates non-pecuniary, psychological costs. We quantify these non-pecuniary losses by using the life satisfaction approach. In contrast to previous studies, we apply Friedman's (1957) permanent income hypothesis by distinguishing between temporary and permanent effects of income changes. ...
Within the German welfare system, heating expenditures of recipients are in general fully covered by the government. This paper empirically tests for the hypothesis that households receiving welfare payments turn to over consumption of residential space heating. We use microdata from two different data sources to explore whether conditional heating expenditures of these households significantly differ ...
Heterogeneity in the ethnic composition of Germany's immigrant population renders general conclusions on the degree of economic integration difficult. Using a rich longitudinal data-set, this paper tests for differences in economic assimilation profiles of four entry cohorts of foreign-born immigrants and ethnic Germans. The importance of time-invariant individual unobserved heterogeneity and panel ...
Which role do individual income prospects play in the decision to be an entrepreneur rather than an employee? In a model of occupational choice, higher expected after-tax earnings attract people to self-employment, while more risky net earnings deter risk-averse individuals. In this paper I analyse the expected value and variance of income in self-employment and dependent employment empirically, accounting ...
The aim of this paper is to estimate income advantages arising from publicly provided education and to analyse their impact on the income distribution in Germany. Using representative micro-data from the SOEP and considering regional and education-specific variation, from a cross-sectional perspective the overall result is the expected levelling effect. When estimating the effects of accumulated educational ...
2007| Joachim R. Frick, Markus M. Grabka, Olaf Groh-Samberg
The present paper analyzes the out-migration of graduates to other German states or abroad based on the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP). Applying duration analysis, it can be shown that, ten years after graduation, slightly more than seventy percent of the graduates still live in the state where they completed their studies. The parametric estimation model identifies personal characteristics that ...