Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Earnings Responses to Social Security Contributions

This paper exploits discontinuities induced by earnings caps for social security contributions (SSC) in Germany to analyse the effect of SSC on gross labour earnings. Empirical evidence is based on two complementary approaches utilising two administrative data sets. First, employment responses to SSC at the intensive margin are identified by a modified bunching approach that is applied to kinks in ...

Labour Market Responses to Social Security Contributions and Social Benefits (dissertation)

This dissertation focuses on earnings responses to SSC and social benefits which amounted to on average 10.3% and 13.6 % of GDP, respectively, in the OECD countries in 2014. Their large magnitude makes it essential to understand and quantify their impact on labour market outcomes. The four chapters of this dissertation cover the two crucial channels of labour market reactions encompassed in earnings ...

Intra-urban polarization due to tertiarisation of the urban labiur market? Evidence from urban regions in Germany

Declining Teen Employment: Minimum Wages, Returns to Schooling, and Immigration

We explore the decline in teen employment in the United States since 2000, which was sharpest for 16–17 year-olds. We consider three main explanatory factors: a rising minimum wage that could reduce employment opportunities for teens and potentially increase the value of investing in schooling; rising returns to schooling; and increasing competition from immigrants that, like the minimum wage, could ...

The Micro-Foundations of Party Competition and Issue Ownership: The Reciprocal Effects of Citizens’ Issue Salience and Party Attachments

While previous research on the reciprocal effects of citizens’ issue attitudes and their party support emphasize citizens’ issue positions, political competition revolves equally around issue salience, i.e., debates over which issue areas political parties should prioritize. Using multi-wave panel data from Germany and Great Britain, we analyze the reciprocal effects of citizens’ issue salience and ...

Homemade citizens: The development of political interest during adolescence and young adulthood

Despite being among the most important indicators of political participation, relatively little is known about the origins and the development of political interest over the lifespan. The formative years between childhood and adulthood are generally considered a crucial phase in which future electors form and strengthen political habits. The aim of this research is to better understand this important ...

The Individual-Level Dynamics of Bounded Partisanship

Over the past half century, scholars have utilized a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches to study the attachment or identification voters have with political parties. However, models of partisan (in)stability ignore its bounded character. Making use of Mixed Latent Markov Models, we measure the change and stability of individual-level West German partisan identification captured over ...

Poverty Analysis with Unit and Item Nonresponses: Alternative Estimators Compared

Explaining Interviewee Contact and Co-operation in the British and German Household Panels

This paper investigates the factors affecting the contact and the co-operation of the interviewees in the British Household Panel Survey, in the German Socio Economic Panel Survey and in the European Community Household Panel for the UK and for Germany. The coexistence of two independent panel surveys in the UK and in Germany gives the opportunity to investigate if differentials in the contact and ...

A cross-country comparison of survey nonparticipation in the ECHP