SOEP Research: Inequality and Mobility

Immigrants in the UK and in West Germany: Relative Income Positions, Income Portfolio, and Redistribution Effects

The Income Portfolio of Immigrants in Germany: Effects of Ethnic Origin and Assimilation or: Who Gains from Income Re-Distribution?

Public Transfers, Income Distribution, and Poverty in Germany and in the United States

To What Extent Do Fiscal Regimes Equalize Opportunities for Income Acquisition among Citizens?

This project employs the theory of equality of opportunity, described in Roemer's book (Equality of Opportunity, Harvard University Press, 1998), to compute the extent to which tax-and-transfer regimes in ten countries equalize opportunities among citizens for income acquisition. Roughly speaking, equality of opportunity for incomes has been achieved in a country when it is the case that the distributions ...

Short Term Living Conditions and Long Term Prospects of Immigrant Children in Germany

In Germany the foreign born population is made up of foreigners and so called ”ethnic Germans” who migrated from eastern European countries to Germany. While the first group is confronted with problems arising from the typical German concept of ethnicity and citizenship, the latter are entitled to a German passport immediately after crossing the border. About one half of the immigrants who entered ...

A Forgotten Issue: Distributional Effects of Day Care Subsidies in Germany

In westlichen Industrienationen besteht heute im allgemeinen ein Konsens darüber, dass die Betreuung in Kindertageseinrichtungen öffentlich subventioniert werden sollte. Weniger Klarheit besteht jedoch über die verteilungspolitischen Effekte der öffentlichen Förderung von Kinderbetreuung. Eine solche Unkenntnis über die Verteilungseffekte der öffentlichen Förderung von Kinderbetreuung kann jedoch dazu ...

To What Extent do Fiscal Regimes Equalize Opportunities for Income Acquisition Among Citizens?

This project employs the theory of equality of opportunity, described in Roemer's book (Equality of Opportunity, Harvard University Press, 1998), to compute the extent to which tax-and-transfer regimes in ten countries equalize opportunities among citizens for income acquisition. Roughly speaking, equality of opportunity for incomes has been achieved in a country when it is the case that the distributions ...

Immigrants in Two Modern Nations: Characteristics of the Foreign and Native Born Populations in Germany and the United States

How Unification and Immigration Affected the German Income Distribution

The German economy is not only affected by unification of Germany but by a significant influx of immigrants from abroad and huge migration from East to West Germany around the date of unification. Data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (GSOEP) allows one to disentangle those effects by decomposition of the Theil I(0)-Index of inequality. In addition, the paper offers insights into the transition ...

The Income of Socialist Upper Classes during the Transition to Capitalism: Evidence from Longitudinal East German Data

We use data from the East German sample of the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) to examine the incomes of privileged individuals during the transition from socialism to capitalism. The standard measure of elite status is party membership, but this measure is likely to be inaccurate. Instead we identify the upperclass by the ownership of a telephone before the fall of the Berlin Wall. We find that ...