Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Have you felt angry lately?: A note on unfair wage perceptions and the negative emotion of anger

The author analyses the nexus between unfair wage perceptions of workers and the frequency of the negative emotion of anger. For this purpose, German household panel data for the years 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2013 are used. Angry feelings in the last four weeks have occurred significantly more frequently for workers who perceive their wage as unfair, whereas the own absolute hourly wage is not significantly ...

An empirical note on commuting distance and sleep during workweek and weekend

The author uses six years of large-scale panel survey data for Germany to analyse the nexus between commuting distance from the place of residence to the workplace and quantity of sleep. Pooled and individual fixed-effects regressions indicate that workers with longer commuting distance sleep significantly less per night during the workweek, but not less during the weekend. A one kilometer longer commuting ...

The impact of participation in sports on educational attainment—New evidence from Germany

We analyze the impact of exercising sports during childhood and adolescence on educational attainment. The theoretical framework is based on models of allocation of time and educational productivity. Using the rich information from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP), we apply generalized ordered probit models to estimate the effect of participation in sport activities on secondary school degrees ...

Religious activity, risk-taking preferences and financial behaviour: Empirical evidence from German survey data

Individual preferences with respect to risk taking play an important role in financial economic behaviour and hence in financial markets. Using German microdata, we argue that individual religiosity accounts for differences in individual's risk preferences and private financial behaviour. First, we find that adherents of the two main Christian religions in Germany (Protestants and Catholics) are ...

Life Satisfaction in Germany after Reunification: Additional Insights on the Pattern of Convergence

The authors update previous findings on the total East-West gap in overall life satisfaction and its trend by using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) for the years 1992 to 2013. Additionally, the East-West gap and its trend are separately analyzed for men and women as well as for four birth cohorts. The results indicate that reported life satisfaction is on average significantly lower ...

Do unfair perceived own pay and top managers’ pay erode satisfaction with democracy?

Many people are relatively unsatisfied with the democratic system as it currently exists. In this empirical research note, the authors present evidence that German workers, who perceive their own pay or top managers? pay as unfair, are on average significantly less happy with the democracy in Germany. Thus, fairness perceptions in the labour market and of income inequality seem to have spillover effects ...

Why Women Don't Ask: Gender Differences in Fairness Perceptions of Own Wages and Subsequent Wage Growth

The authors analyze gender differences in fairness perceptions of own wages and subsequent wage growth. The main finding is that women perceive their wage more often as fair if controls for hourly wage rates, individual and job-related characteristics are taken into account. Furthermore, the gender difference is more pronounced for married than for single women. This points to the fact that social ...

Goodbye Smokers’ Corner: Health Effects of School Smoking Bans

We estimate the causal impact of school smoking bans in Germany on the propensity and intensity of smoking. Using representative longitudinal data, we use variation in state, year, age cohort, school track, and survey time for implementation of such smoking bans to identify the effects of interest. The estimates from our multipledifferences approach show that six to ten years after intervention, propensity ...

On the Power of Childhood Impressions for Skill Formation: Initial Evidence and Unsettled Questions

Manifold childhood impressions result from the interactions with adult caregivers and the environment. These impressions, be they beneficial or detrimental, shape individual skill formation and achievement over the life cycle. The novelty of the paper is that it bonds two different, hitherto separated, research lines, one from economics, one from psychology, to discuss the relationship between childhood ...

Business start-ups by the unemployed - an econometric analysis based on firm data