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Report
On July 8 and 9, 2026, the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) welcomed approximately 90 researchers from Germany and abroad to its user conference in Berlin. Every two years, SOEP data users from various disciplines—including the social and economic sciences—meet to present their current research and network.
Just a few days earlier, the German Science Council had rated the SOEP’s application for strategic ...
14.07.2026| Verena Neumann
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Report
The implementation of municipal heat planning was the focus of the semi-annual meeting of the "Wärme-ZIEL" research project in Reppenstedt near Lüneburg on 5 June 2026. Representatives from science, municipalities and the energy industry discussed current challenges of the heating transition and discussed the next steps in the project. To kick things off, Claudia Kemfert gave an overview of the current ...
22.06.2026| Dana Kirchem, Caroline Stiel
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Personnel news
Gökhan Ider, Research Associate in the Macroeconomics Department, successfully defended his dissertation entitled “The Conduct and Transmission of Macroeconomic Policy. Essays in Monetary, Fiscal and Financial Stability Policy” on June 19, 2026. He was supervised by Alexander Kriwoluzky and Malte Rieth. Congratulations!
22.06.2026
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Personnel news
Lorenz Meister successfully defended his dissertation, “Essays on Economic Beliefs, Risk Preferences, and Political Attitudes in Contemporary Democracies,” at Freie Universität Berlin on 18 June. His supervisors were Carsten Schröder (FU Berlin, SOEP) and Panu Poutvaara (LMU Munich).
We congratulate Lorenz on this outstanding achievement!
19.06.2026
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Personnel news
Lorenz Meister, Research Associate in the SOEP Department, successfully defended his dissertation entitled “Essays on Economic Beliefs, Risk Preferences, and Political Attitudes in Contemporary Democracies” on June 18, 2026. He was supervised by Carsten Schröder and Panu Poutvaara. Congratulations!
19.06.2026
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Publication
A study conducted within the SOEP Innovation Sample (SOEP-IS) by Christoph Schmidt-Petri, Daniel Labarca Pinto, and Carsten Schröder with 2,295 respondents confirms that people are much more likely to attribute intentionality to harmful side effects than to beneficial ones.
The findings replicate a classic result from experimental philosophy using representative population data and highlight the potential ...
15.06.2026| Daniel Labarca Pinto, Carsten Schröder
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Interview
For more than 40 years, SOEP has been collecting information on living conditions, health, and social factors from approximately 30,000 individuals. Based on these data, Sabine Zinn develops synthetic health data that links different information sources and enable realistic scenario modeling. These models help researchers understand human behavior during crises and assess potential impacts at an early ...
02.06.2026| Sabine Zinn
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Publication
The Socio-Economic Panel’s 42nd year marked a turning point, as the recently published annual report shows. The SOEP’s vision for its own strategic expansion was evaluated by the Leibniz Association and the German Science Council (as the “great strategic enhancement”). This broad-based initiative aims to ensure the study’s continued sustainability through methodological and technical innovations. The ...
01.06.2026| Janina Britzke, Markus M. Grabka, Verena Neumann
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Report
The Geolinking Service SoRa enables spatial analysis of social science survey data and contributes to socio-spatial research. It provides pre-prepared geospatial datasets as well as methods for linking survey and spatial data.
On 13 May, a successful soft launch was held as an online event with 100 participants.
To facilitate exchange among users of the SoRa geolinking service, a dedicated discussion ...
14.05.2026| Alexander Jung
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Report
The Geolinking Service SoRa enables spatial analysis of social science survey data and supports socio-spatial research. Pre-defined geospatial datasets and linking methods will be offered, e.g. spatial indicators from the IOER-Monitor to analyses the living environment (including aspects of accessibility, or density). Furthermore, geocoding (based on BKG Geocoder) is offered to transfer address lists ...
14.05.2026| Alexander Jung
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Personnel news
Clara Schäper, Research Associate in the Public Economics Department and Gender Economics research group and Ph.D. student at the University of Potsdam, successfully defended her dissertation entitled “The Personal is Political: Five Essays in Labor and Family Economics” on May 12, 2026. She was supervised by Katharina Wrohlich and C. Katharina Spieß. Congratulations!
13.05.2026
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Personnel news
We are proud to share that our PhD student Gökhan Ider (Freie Universität Berlin) and Hedda Thorell from Stockholm University were awarded the Lamfalussy Research Fellowship 2026 by the European Central Bank. They are among five fellows and will work on their paper "News-driven fluctuations and monetary policy transmission" during their fellowship.
The Lamfalussy Fellowship program was launched in ...
13.05.2026
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Personnel news
We welcome Clara Schäper as a postdoctoral researcher in the Crime, Labor, and Inequality Division. Clara earned her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Potsdam, the Berlin School of Economics, and the DIW Graduate Center. Her research focuses on the economics of crime, the labor market, gender, and the family. Her current research focuses on gender differences and inequalities in the labor market ...
12.05.2026
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Report
The SOEP Survey Council welcomes Katrin Rehdanz (Kiel University) as a new member. In addition, Caezilia Loibl (The Ohio State University), Oliver Lipps (FORS), and Tobias Schmidt (Deutsche Bundesbank) have been reappointed for another term. After serving two terms, Philippe Van Kerm (University of Luxembourg) has stepped down from the Council.
01.05.2026| Simon Kleineweber
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Publication
Updated versions of the SOEP-RV VSKT2022 and SOEP-RV RTBN2023 datasets have been available since April 2026. The new releases expand the existing data with additional information for current research projects.
SOEP-RV links SOEP survey data with anonymized pension insurance records, providing unique opportunities to study life-course dynamics, social inequality, and the effects of policy reforms.
Further ...
30.04.2026| Jan Goebel, Markus M. Grabka, Carsten Schröder
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Publication
Since April 2026, revised versions of the SOEP-RV VSKT2022 and SOEP-RV RTBN2023 datasets are available. These updated releases expand and refresh the existing datasets by adding new information that supports current research projects.
SOEP-RV is a joint project of the Research Data Centre of the German Pension Insurance (FDZ-RV) and the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin). The project ...
30.04.2026| Jan Goebel, Markus M. Grabka, Carsten Schröder
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Personnel news
October 8, 1936 – † April 4, 2026
Professor Dr. Richard Hauser passed away in early April at the age of 89. With his death, the SOEP longitudinal study loses one of its founding fathers, long-time promoters, and consistently reliable supporters. Richard Hauser, together with his colleagues from the fields of economics and sociology, launched the SOEP in the early 1980s and significantly shaped its ...
15.04.2026
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Publication
SOEP researcher Cristóbal Moya participated in a large international study on the replicability of social and behavioral science research, which was published in the prestigious journal Nature. As part of the SCORE project, 274 findings from 164 scholarly articles were independently evaluated.
Approximately half of the findings could be replicated, although the measured effects were often smaller ...
03.04.2026| Cristóbal Moya
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Report
The German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) organizes the fourth Scientific Workshop on Productivity jointly with the German Council of Economic Experts (SVR Wirtschaft) in its role as the German National Productivity Board and the Institute of Energy Economics at the University of Cologne (EWI). The event, which will take place on 24 and 25 August 2026 at DIW Berlin, serves as a platform ...
01.04.2026| Thilo Kroeger, Alexander Schiersch
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Press Release
Although the leading economic research institutes consider the German economy to be in a recovery phase following a downturn lasting several years, they nevertheless expect only a moderate increase in gross domestic product of 0.6 percent for 2026 and 0.9 percent for 2027. “The energy price shock triggered by the Iran war is hitting the recovery hard, but at the same time expansionary fiscal policy ...
01.04.2026