In Germany, employee absences due to illness rose sharply, particularly in 2022. Various sources argue that the introduction of the electronic certificate of incapacity for work (eAU) caused this. Official data previously did not include absences that were not reported to health insurance providers; since the introduction of the eAU, this is no longer the case. This gap does not exist in Socio-Economic ...
Climate change triggers anxiety in many people. Concerns about the consequences of climate change vary significantly not just by age and generation but also over time. Using German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) data, this Weekly Report examines the extent to which these differences stem from age-related effects, generational socialization, or year-specific events. The results show that climate concerns ...
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!
In structural vector autoregressive analysis, it has become quite popular to identify some structural shocks of interest by external instruments or proxies. This study points out a variety of areas where such proxies have been used and sketches the way the proxies have been constructed. It reviews identification and estimation methods that have been considered in this context. Moreover, it points out ...
We study the role of international financial integration in buffering natural disaster shocks, using a large sample of advanced and emerging economies. Natural disasters are largely unpredictable and unrelated to the state of financial integration. We document that integration improves the absorption of such shocks: Output, consumption, and investment are significantly higher after a natural disaster ...
Empirical evidence on price premiums for green intermediate products is scarce, especially for energy-intensive basic materials. Evidence on such green premiums is relevant, as they may affect companies incentives to invest in green production technologies. Moreover, green premiums are important for the design of green support programmes, as support levels could be adjusted for companies’ green revenues. ...
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 ...
