Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Works Councils and Performance Appraisals

Drawing on two large German representative data sets, we analyze the role of works councils for the use of performance appraisals (PA). We distinguish between the incidence of performance appraisal systems as intended by the firm and their actual implementation on the level of the individual employee. We find that works councils tend to promote rather than restrict PA. Employees working in establishments ...

The Role of Contract Types for Employees’ Public Service Motivation

The intention of “doing good for society” is regarded to be a crucial motivator for employees in the public sector in order for them to perform well. Recent research in the public sector literature calls for a deeper understanding of how this specific public service motivation (PSM) is shaped. In our paper, we analyze how different degrees of inclusion in the public sector matter for PSM. We investigate ...

Why is the share of women willing to work in East Germany larger than in West Germany? A logit model of extensive labour supply decision

The aim of the paper is to analyse differences in the labour force participation (LFP) between East and West German women. Using microcensus data in a binary choice model, we distinguish three main explanations for these differences: the skill composition, the regional labour market and childcare availability. As LFP in-creases in the skill-level, the larger share of high-skilled women in East Germany ...

On Developments in the Mean Joint Lifetimes of Three- and Four-Generation Families in Western and Eastern Germany – A model Calculation

This article tackles the question of how, on the one hand, the high life expectancy and, on the other, the increasing age of mothers at childbirth will impact the joint lifetime of three and four generations and will develop in future. To this end, indicators are derived from the official data on mortality and fertility for the mean joint lifetimes of three- and four-generation families. Because of ...

Reference-Dependent Effects of Unemployment on Mental Well-Being

This paper provides an empirical analysis of reference-dependent effects of unemployment on mental well-being. We show that the negative effect of unemployment on mental well-being depends on expectations about the future employment status. Several contributions to the literature have shown that the perception of the individual employment status depends on the surrounding unemployment rate. We argue ...

Public and Private Health Insurance in Germany: The Ignored Risk Selection Problem

While risk selection within the German public health insurance system has received considerable attention, risk selection between public and private health insurers has largely been ignored. This is surprising since - given the institutional structure - risk selection between systems is likely to be more pronounced. We find clear evidence for risk selection in favor of private insurers. While private ...

Making it right? Social norms, handwriting and human capital

I study the forced right-hand writing of left-handed children (switching) as a case where social norms motivate parents to invest in their children. While the previous literature has found that left-handers obtain less human capital and lower wages than right-handers, due to innate cognitive deficits, I find that switched lefthanders actually perform equally well or even better than right-handers in ...

Social Capital as Good Culture (Alfred Marshall Lecture)

To explain the extremely long-term persistence (more than 500 years) of positive historical experiences of cooperation (Putnam 1993), we model the intergenerational transmission of priors about the trustworthiness of others. We show that this transmission tends to be biased toward excessively conservative priors. As a result, societies can be trapped in a low-trust equilibrium. In this context, a temporary ...

The Impact of Minimum Wages on Well-Being: Evidence from a Quasi-Experiment in Germany

We analyze well-being effects of minimum wages, using the introduction of the minimum wage in Germany as a quasi-experiment. Based on representative data, a difference-in-differences design compares the development of life, job, and pay satisfaction between employees who are affected by the reform according to their pre-intervention wages and those who have marginally higher wages at outset. We find ...

Assimilation and Cohort Effects for German Immigrants