Recently published SOEP Survey Papers

Several interesting SOEP Survey Papers have been published recently.

One of the most noteworthy of these is the SOEP Scales Manual, which provides a brief theoretical background of every scale used in the SOEP and a description of its development. The manual also includes the most important references from the literature as well as the wording of all of the items and answer options in the scales (including both the German original and the English translation). An added value of this manual lies in the table accompanying each scale, which gives the wave-specific variable name for each item. This enables users to quickly find and aggregate the items in the scale (SOEP Survey Paper 138: SOEP Scales Manual).

Another recently published Survey Paper documents the SOEP consumption module, which was first used in the SOEP household questionnaire in 2010. The paper thoroughly describes the process of editing, imputing, and smoothing the data (SOEP Survey Paper 145: SOEP 2010 - Preparation of data from the new SOEP consumption module: Editing, imputation, and smoothing).

The SOEP Survey Papers series was launched in 2011 with the aim of publishing all documentation of the SOEP's development, implementation, and data preparation. It is comprised of seven subseries (A-G). The papers in Series C, Data Documentation—to which the two papers mentioned above belong—focus on the documentation of questionnaire development, survey methods, and data preparation.

All SOEP Survey Papers at http://www.diw.de/soepsurveypapers.