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SOEPpapers 714 / 2014
The central limit theorem says that, provided an estimator fulfills certain weak conditions, then, for reasonable sample sizes, the sampling distribution of the estimator converges to normality. We propose a procedure to find out what a “reasonably large sample size” is. The procedure is based on the properties of Gini’s mean difference decomposition. We show the results of implementations of the procedure ...
2014| Carsten Schröder, Shlomo Yitzhaki
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SOEPpapers 713 / 2014
Past studies have found that parental background has a considerable impact on educational decisions. Our knowledge is, however, still limited regarding educational transitions later in life, such as into tertiary education. Is parental background a predominant factor in this relatively late educational decision, or do individual talent and determination have an impact of their own? We address this ...
2014| Tamás Keller, Guido Neidhöfer
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SOEPpapers 712 / 2014
This paper presents detailed evidence about who compares to whom in terms of relative income. We rely on representative survey data on the importance of income comparisons vis-a-vis seven reference groups, allowing us to exploit within-subject heterogeneity. We explore the prevalence and determinants of positional income concerns, investigating the role of personality and economic preferences. Our ...
2014| Tim Friehe, Mario Mechtel, Markus Pannenberg
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SOEPpapers 711 / 2014
Der Beitrag untersucht auf Basis des SOEP die Entwicklung der Stundenlöhne von abhängig Beschäftigten (einschließlich Teilzeit- und geringfügig Beschäftigten) in Ost- und Westdeutschland zwischen 1992 und 2012. Die Analyse bezieht sich nicht nur auf die mittleren Löhne (Median), sondern auch auf die Entwicklung der Löhne im oberen und unteren Quintil der Stundenlohnverteilung sowie differenziert nach ...
2014| Gerhard Bosch, Thorsten Kalina, Claudia Weinkopf
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SOEPpapers 710 / 2014
We estimate average causal effects of early-life hunger on late-life health by applying instrumental variable estimation, using data with self-reported periods of hunger earlier in life, with famines as instruments. The data contain samples from European countries and include birth cohorts exposed to various famines in the 20th century. We use two-sample IV estimation to deal with imperfect recollection ...
2014| Gerard J. van den Berg, Pia R. Pinger, Johannes Schoch
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SOEPpapers 709 / 2014
This paper examines the extent to which pre-puberty nutritional conditions in one generation affect productivity-related outcomes in later generations. Recent findings from the biological literature suggest that age 8-12 is a critical period for male germ cell development. We build on this evidence and investigate whether undernutrition at that age biologically transmits to children and grandchildren. ...
2014| Gerard J. van den Berg, Pia R. Pinger
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SOEPpapers 708 / 2014
Dieses Papier charakterisiert die SOEP-Nutzer, beschreibt ihre Zufriedenheit mit dem SOEP-Service und untersucht ihre Nutzungsgewohnheiten bei der Arbeit mit den Daten. Die Untersuchungen bauen primär auf den Daten der SOEP-Nutzerbefragungen 2004, 2011, 2012 und 2013 auf. Ältere Nutzerbefragungen (in den 1980er und 1990er Jahren) werden kurz dokumentiert. Die Beschreibung der Nutzer konzentriert sich ...
2014| Marcel Hebing, Florian Griese, Janine Napieraj, Marius Pahl, Carolin Stolpe, Gert G. Wagner
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SOEPpapers 707 / 2014
This paper focuses on the role of home country’s fertility culture in shaping immigrants’ fertility. I use the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) to study completed fertility of first-generation immigrants who arrived from different countries and in different years. The variation in total fertility rates (TFRs) across countries and over time serves as a proxy for cultural changes. By using a linear ...
2014| Kamila Cygan-Rehm
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SOEPpapers 706 / 2014
The thoughts that an individual has about the future contribute substantially to their life satisfaction in a positive or negative direction. This is a result found via five different methods, some of which control for personality and disposition and the potential endogeneity of thoughts and life satisfaction. The reduction in life satisfaction experienced by individuals who report being pessimistic ...
2014| Alan Piper
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SOEPpapers 705 / 2014
This paper analyses the income effect of the participation in elite sports. To quantify the average difference in the monthly net income of former elite athletes and non-athletes we estimate sample average treatment effect scores (SATT) by using covariate nearest-neighbour matching (CVM). While our treatment group consists of formerly funded top-level athletes, the control group of non-athletes is ...
2014| Ralf Dewenter, Leonie Giessing
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SOEPpapers 704 / 2014
There is a long tradition in psychology, the social sciences and, more recently though, economics to hypothesize that religion enhances prosocial behavior. Evidence from both survey and experimental data however yield mixed results and there is barely any evidence for Germany. This study adds to this literature by exploring data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), which provides both attitudinal ...
2014| Guido Heineck
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SOEPpapers 703 / 2014
This article examines the impact of unemployment on social participation for Germany using the German Socio-Economic Panel. We find significant negative, robust and, for some activities, lasting effects of unemployment on social participation. Causality is established by focussing on plant closures as exogenous entries into unemployment. Social norms, labor market prospects and the perception of individual ...
2014| Lars Kunze, Nicolai Suppa
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SOEPpapers 702 / 2014
In Germany, individuals in need of long-term care receive support through benefits of the long-term care insurance. A central goal of the insurance is to support informal care provided by family members. Care recipients can choose between benefits in kind (formal home care services) and benefits in cash. From a budgetary perspective family care is a cost-saving alternative to formal home care and to ...
2014| Johannes Geyer, Thorben Korfhage
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SOEPpapers 701 / 2014
Empirical studies use the assumption of stability in individual risk attitudes when searching for a relationship between attitude to risk and the decision to become and survive as an entrepreneur. We show that risk attitudes do not remain stable but face endogenous adaption when starting a new business. This adaption is associated with entrepreneurial survival. The results show that entrepreneurs with ...
2014| Matthias Brachert, Walter Hyll, Mirko Titze
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SOEPpapers 700 / 2014
This paper analyzes whether individuals have equal opportunity to achieve happiness (or wellbeing). We estimate sibling correlations and intergenerational correlations in self-reported life satisfaction, satisfaction with household income, job satisfaction, and satisfaction with health. We find high sibling correlations for all measures of well-being. The results suggest that family background explains, ...
2014| Daniel D. Schnitzlein, Christoph Wunder
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SOEPpapers 699 / 2014
German Socio-Economic Panel data is used to show that the decrease in life satisfaction caused by an increase in the probability of losing work is higher when self-employed than when paid employed. Further estimations reveal that becoming unemployed reduces self-employed workers’ satisfaction considerably more than salaried workers’ satisfaction. These results indicate that losing self-employment is ...
2014| Clemens Hetschko
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SOEPpapers 698 / 2014
This paper examines to what extent non-random sorting of spouses affects earnings inequality while explicitly disentangling effects from increasing assortativeness in couple formation from changing patterns of couples’ labor supply behavior. Using German micro data, earnings distributions of observed and randomly matched couples are compared to each other. Earnings of hypothetical couples are adjusted ...
2014| Nico Pestel
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SOEPpapers 697 / 2014
Using a nationally representative panel dataset, this study investigates the extent and impact of systematic misconceptions of the currently unemployed concerning their statistical re-employment probability, affecting their labor market behavior in a sub-optimal way. Specifically, people with unemployment experience of 3 to 5 years significantly underestimate their objective re-employment probabilities ...
2014| Sonja C. Kassenboehmer, Sonja G. Schatz
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SOEPpapers 696 / 2014
What is subjective well-being influenced by? Since the Report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress by Stiglitz, Sen and Fitoussi a huge number of studies has raised this question – with partly different findings. In addition, international organizations are increasingly addressing subjective well-being issues. The post-2015 development agenda of the United ...
2014| Erich Oltmanns, Albert Braakmann, Joachim Schmidt
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SOEPpapers 695 / 2014
This paper investigates the role of relative comparisons in health status for individual health satisfaction. Previous research stresses the importance of interdependencies in subjective well-being and health arising from positional preferences and status e ects, social health norms, and comparison processes. Using representative longitudinal data from a German population survey, we estimate empirical ...
2014| Lars Thiel