This paper estimates the effect of involuntary job loss on smoking behavior and body weight using German Socio-Economic Panel Study data. Baseline nonsmokers are more likely to start smoking due to job loss, while smokers do not intensify their smoking. Job loss increases body weight slightly, but significantly. In particular, single individuals as well as those with lower health or socioeconomic status ...
Lars Bertram (Max Planck Institut für molekulare Genetik), Ko-Sprecher Ulman Lindenberger (Max Planck Institut für Bildungsforschung), Ko-Sprecher Elisabeth Steinhagen-Thiessen (geriatrische Forschungsgruppe der Charité), Ko-Sprecher Gert G. Wagner (Sozio-oekonomisches Panel und Max Planck Institut für Bildungsforschung), Sprecher Lars Bäckman (Karolinska Institut, Schweden) Hauke Heekeren ...
The issue of whether employees who work more hours than they want to suffer adverse health consequences is important not only at the individual level but also for governmental formation of work time policy. Our study investigates this question by analyzing the impact of the discrepancy between actual and desired work hours on self-perceived health outcomes in Germany and the United Kingdom. Based on ...
This paper employs a multidimensional approach for the measurement of well-being at the top of the distribution using German SOEP micro data. Besides income as traditional indicator for material well-being, we include health as a proxy for nonmaterial quality of life as well as self-reported satisfaction with life as dimensions. We find that one third of the German population is well-off in at least ...
Looking at smoking-behavior it can be shown that there are differences concerning the time-preference-rate. Therefore this has an effect on the optimal schooling decision in the way that we assume a lower average human capital level for smokers. According to a higher time-preference-rate we suppose a higher return to education for smokers who go further on education. With our empirical fondings we ...
Die 2009 implementierte Gesundheitsreform hat die Preistransparenz und somit die Verbraucherfreundlichkeit innerhalb der gesetzlichen Krankenversicherung (GKV) zunächst deutlich erhöht und die Bereitschaft der Versicherten gefördert, auf Preiserhöhungen mit einem Wechsel der Krankenkasse zu reagieren. Denn mit der Einführung des Gesundheitsfonds 2009 wurden alle Beitragssätze vereinheitlicht. Preisunterschiede ...
This paper provides field evidence on (a) how price framing affects consumers' decision to switch health insurance plans and (b) how the price elasticity of demand for health insurance can be influenced by policymakers through simple regulatory efforts. In 2009, in order to foster competition among health insurance companies, German federal regulation required health insurance companies to express ...
In a simple 2-period model of relative income under uncertainty, higher comparison income for the younger cohort can signal higher or lower expected lifetime relative income, and hence either increase or decrease well-being. With data from the German Socio-Economic Panel and the British Household Panel Survey, we first confirm the standard negative effects of comparison income on life satisfaction ...
