Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Overtime Work, Overtime Compensation and the Distribution of Economic Well-Being - Evidence for West Germany and Great Britain

Risk Selection under Public Health Insurance with Opt-Out

This paper studies risk selection between public and private health insurance when some, but not all, individuals can opt out of otherwise mandatory public insurance. Using a theoretical model, I show that public insurance is adversely selected when insurers and insureds are symmetrically informed about health-related risks, and that there can be adverse or advantageous selection when insureds are ...

Three essays in health economics

Expenditures for health care and health insurance have increased rapidly over the last several decades. This thesis is composed of three essays that analyze markets for health care and health insurance, respectively. Chapter 1 studies risk selection between public and private health insurance when some, but not all, individuals can opt out of otherwise mandatory public insurance. Using a theoretical ...

Accounting for inequality in the EU: Income disparities between and within member states and overall income inequality

Wealth Distribution and Individual Voting Preferences: A Comparative Perspective

The political science literature has neglected the role that economic wealth may play in shaping voting preferences during national elections, most likely because of a lack of data on wealth. This paper examines the influence of household net worth on voting preferences in the United States, with reference to Sweden and Germany. This paper employs individual-level data from the American National Election ...

L'immigration au Luxembourg, et après?

Income Comparisons, Income Adaptation, and Life Satisfaction: How Robust Are Estimates from Survey Data?

Theory suggests that subjective well-being is affected by income comparisons and adaptation to income. Empirical tests of the effects often rely on self-constructed measures from survey data. This paper shows that results can be highly sensitive to simple parameter changes. Using large-scale panel data from Germany and the UK, I report cases where plausible variations in the underlying income type ...

Testing the Easterlin Hypothesis with Panel Data: The Dynamic Relationship Between Life Satisfaction and Economic Growth in Germany and in the UK

Recent studies focused on testing the Easterlin hypothesis (happiness and national income correlate in the cross-section but not over time) on a global level. We make a case for testing the Easterlin hypothesis at the country level where individual panel data allow exploiting important methodological advantages. Novelties of our test of the Easterlin hypothesis are a) long-term panel data and estimation ...

Status Attainment and Wealth in the United States and Germany

Mobility Regimes and Parental Wealth: The United States, Germany, and Sweden in Comparison

We study the role of parental wealth for children’s educational and occupational outcomes across three types of welfare states and outline a theoretical model that assumes parental wealth to impact offspring’s attainment through two mechanisms, wealth’s purchasing function and its insurance function. We argue that welfare states can limit the purchasing function of wealth, for instance by providing ...