Search

Financial Conditions, Macroeconomic Factors and Disaggregated Bond Excess Returns

Bond excess returns can be predicted by macro factors, however, large parts remain still unexplained. We apply a novel term structure model to decompose bond excess returns into expected excess returns (risk premia) and the innovation part. In order to explore these risk premia and innovations, we complement macro variables by financial condition variables as possible determinants of bond excess returns. ...

Bayesian Procedures as a Numerical Tool for the Estimation of an Intertemporal Discrete Choice Model

Discrete choice models usually require a general specification of unobserved heterogeneity. In this paper, we apply Bayesian procedures as a numerical tool for the estimation of a female labor supply model based on a sample size that is typical for common household panels. We provide two important results for the practitioner: First, for a specification with a multivariate normal distribution for the ...

Urban House Prices: A Tale of 48 Cities

In this paper, the authors construct a unique data set of Internet offer prices for flats in 48 large European cities across 24 countries. The data collected between January and May 2012 from 33 websites, are drawn from Internet advertisements of dwellings. Using the resulting sample of more than 1,000,000 announcements, the authors compute the quality-adjusted city-specific house prices. Based on ...

Fifth cohort of FAMS trainees in market and social research join the SOEP in September: A successful model for training a new generation of data professionals

Since autumn of 2011, the SOEP has been offering in-house traineeships to students who are studying to be specialists in market and social research (Fachangestellte für Markt- und Sozialforschung, FAMS), a three-year degree program that is part of the German dual system of vocational training. The fifth cohort of FAMS students started in September: Selin Kara and Stefan Zimmermann. The two graduates ...

Towards a Gender Quota

In 2016, a fixed gender quota will come into force in Germany, affecting the supervisory boards of listed companies that also have employee representation (full codetermination).1 By as early as September 30, 2015, however, all companies will be obliged to set a self-imposed target quota – even companies that meet just one of these criteria; i.e., either listed or subject to codetermination. A variety ...

I Find the Term "Quota Woman" Unobjective: Eight Questions to Norma Schmitt

Lifetime inequality: The impact of taxation, transfers and pensions

(together with Daniel Kemptner and Victoria Prowse)In this paper, we analyze how income taxes, transfer programs and the pension system affect inequality in lifetime income. Importantly, we consider pre-retirement and post-retirement income and thereby we extend the previous literature on lifetime inequality, which has only considered income received before retirement. We use a dynamic structural...

Panel Survey Methods Workshop 2016

The aim of the workshop is to foster discussion and initiate methodological research specific to the collection of panel survey data. The format of the meeting will be informal, designed to encourage interaction and collaboration. This will be the fifth biennial PSMW. Previous workshops took place in Colchester, UK; Mannheim, Germany; Melbourne, Australia; and Ann Arbor, USA. The main topics of...

Increasing Father Involvement in Child Care: What Do We Know about Effects on Child Development?

The time fathers spend and the activities they perform with children have risen continuously in most Western countries. Increasing father involvement in child care has also been an explicit policy objective with many European countries implementing individual parental leave entitlements for fathers. Whereas these policies mainly aimed at facilitating reconciliation of market work and family care and ...

From Financial to Real Economic Crisis: Evidence from Individual Firm-Bank Relationships in Germany

What began as a financial crisis in the United States in 2007–2008 quickly evolved into a massive crisis of the global real economy. We investigate the importance of the bank lending and firm borrowing channel in the international transmission of bank distress to the real economy—in particular, to real investment and labor employment by nonfinancial firms. We analyze whether and to what extent firms ...