Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Personality Traits, Self-Employment, and Professions

We investigate the effect of broad personality traits - the Big Five - on an individual’s decision to become self-employed. In particular, we test an overall indicator of the entrepreneurial personality. Since we find that the level of selfemployment varies considerably across professions, we also perform the analysis for different types of professions, namely, those classified as being in the “creative ...

Self-Employment after Socialism: Intergenerational Links, Entrepreneurial Values, and Human Capital

Drawing on representative household data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we examine the role of an early precursor of entrepreneurial development – parental role models – for the individual decision to become self-employed in the post-unified Germany. The findings suggest that the socialist regime significantly damaged this mechanism of an intergenerational transmission of entrepreneurial attitudes ...

Entrepreneurship and Creative Professions - A Micro-Level Analysis

It has widely been recognized that creativity plays an immense role not only for arts, sciences, and technology, but also for entrepreneurship, innovation, and thus, economic growth. We analyze the level and the determinants of self-employment in creative professions at the level of individuals. The analysis is based on the representative micro data of the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). The findings ...

Stepping Forward: Personality Traits, Choice of Profession, and the Decision to Become Self-Employed

We argue that entrepreneurial choice proceeds in at least in two steps, with vocational choice nearly always preceding choice of employment status, whether that be self-employment or dependent employment. Since the two decisions are interrelated, analysis of entrepreneurial choice as a single act may lead to inconsistent estimates of the factors that determine the decision to launch a business venture. ...

Income Inequality Trends in the 1980s: A Five Country Comparison

Societal Shifts and Changed Patterns of Poverty

Immigration and Heterogeneous Labor in Western Germany - A Labor Market Classification Based on Nonparametric Estimation

Developing an immigration policy for Germany on the basis of a nonparametric labor market classification

Clean Technology Innovations in Germany: Human Capital Accumulation under Heterogeneous Knowledge Inputs - Data and Methodology Report

This report describes the data and methodology of a self-administered survey of German inventors in three high-technology fields: clean technology, nanotechnology and mechanical elements. Responses were received from 1,932 inventors responsible for 14,873 EP patent applications between 1978 and 2010. The survey data contain potentially important information on individual characteristics such as professional ...

The Effect of Teenage Employment on Character Skills, Expectations and Occupational Choice Strategies

A growing body of research suggests that, even after controlling for cognitive abilities, personality predicts economic success in later life. The learning environment at school focuses on knowledge and cognitive skills. The transmission of character skills, however, is not at the center of attention. Leisure activities as informal learning activities outside of school may affect the formation of skills. ...