This paper investigates justice perceptions of employees towards their own earnings. Earnings are decomposed into three components: (1) In returns based on human capital endowments, (2) in returns based on individual residual differences and (3) in returns based on differences between occupations. The legitimacy of these earnings components is measured via the justice assessments of employees. Based ...
This thesis comprises four chapters and investigates the relationship between individuals' education, health risks, and economic outcomes in Germany. The main contributions to the economic literature are twofold: i) Robust evidence for the causal effect of education on health risks is provided and ii) the implications of health risks for individuals' economic outcomes are quantified from a life-cycle ...
This paper proposes a dynamic life cycle model of health risks, employment, early retirement, and wealth accumulation in order to analyze the health-related risks of consumption and old age poverty. In particular, the model includes a health process, the interaction between health and employment risks, and an explicit modeling of the German public insurance schemes. I rely on a dynamic programming ...
We assess the relevance of formal education on the productivity of the self-employed, distinguishing between opportunity entrepreneurs, who voluntarily pursue a business opportunity, and necessity entrepreneurs, who lack alternative employment options. We expect differences in the returns to education between these groups due to different levels of control over the use of their human capital. The analysis ...
A personal bankruptcy law that allows for a "fresh start" not only reduces the individual risk involved in entrepreneurship, but may also lead to higher interest rates charged by creditors. Both effects are less relevant for wealthy potential entrepreneurs. This paper illustrates these effects in a model and tests the hypotheses derived by exploiting the introduction of a "fresh start" policy in Germany ...
Using cross-sectional and longitudinal data from a national sample spanning the adult life span, age differences in anger and sadness were explored. The cross-sectional and longitudinal findings consistently suggest that the frequency of anger increases during young adulthood, but then shows a steady decrease until old age. By contrast, the frequency of sadness remains stable over most of adulthood ...
A job loss has considerable negative consequences for those hit by unemployment. This is all the more relevant if families are affected. It not only relates to a family's financial situation: a mother losing her job can also impact on child development. A study conducted by DIW Berlin using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) shows that this is indeed the case as far as non-cognitive ...
The interdependence of electricity and natural gas is becoming a major energy policy and regulatory issue in all jurisdictions around the world. The increased role of gas fired plants in renewable-based electricity markets and the dependence on gas imports make this issue particular striking for the European energy market. In this paper we provide a comprehensive combined analysis of electricity and ...
