Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

A Continuous Labour Supply Model in Microsimulation: A Life-Cycle Modelling Approach with Heterogeneity and Uncertainty Extension

This paper advances a structural inter-temporal model of labour supply that is able to simulate the dynamics of labour supply in a continuous setting and to circumvent two main drawbacks of most of the existing models. The first limitation is the inability to incorporate individual heterogeneity as every agent is sharing the same parameters of the utility function. The second one is the strong assumption ...

Male-Female Wage Differentials, Labor Force Attachment and Human-Capital Accumulation in Germany

Where Have All the Workers Gone? Employment Termination in East Germany after Unification

Essays on the Economics of the Labor Market

The present dissertation aims at contributing to the understanding of central labor market mechanisms by analyzing open questions on the determinants of firms' labor demand, unemployed individuals' job search behavior and the state's role in shaping peoples' trust and, thereby, affecting labor market outcomes and economic performance.

The Economic Costs of Mass Surveillance: Insights from Stasi Spying in East Germany

Based on official records from the former East German Ministry for State Security, we quantify the long-term costs of state surveillance on social capital and economic performance. Using county-level variation in the spy density in the 1980s, we exploit discontinuities at state borders to show that higher levels of Stasi surveillance led to lower levels of social capital as measured by interpersonal ...

The Long-Term Costs of Government Surveillance: Insights from Stasi Spying in East Germany

Despite the prevalence of government surveillance systems around the world, causal evidence on their social and economic consequences is lacking. Using county-level variation in the number of Stasi informers within Socialist East Germany during the 1980s and accounting for potential endogeneity, we show that more intense regional surveillance led to lower levels of trust and reduced social activity ...

Many refugees have work experience but a smaller share possess formal vocational qualifications

Academic and vocational qualifications play a crucial role when it comes to successfully integrating refugees and other migrants into society. What qualifications did migrants already acquire in their country of origin and which did they obtain in Germany? And to what extent are qualifications gained abroad recognized in Germany? The IAB-SOEP Migration Sample shows that the majority of the migrant ...

Language acquisition: refugees nearly achieve proficiency level of other migrants

Whether they’re looking to participate in social life, enter the German labor market, or obtain relevant training certificates, learning German is a critical part of integration for the majority of refugees—and yet only a handful of studies have examined their language acquisition patterns and skill levels. The IAB-SOEP Migration Sample, which was collected by the Institute for Employment Research ...

Considering Emigration: German university graduates are moving abroad—but only temporarily

Much of the current German debate about the integration of immigrants overlooks the fact that Germany is not solely a country of immigration, but also—and to a substantial degree—a country of emigration. One of the largest groups of emigrants is made up of Germans themselves. The percentage of German natives in the total population of emigrants has risen substantially over the last few years. In 2009, ...

Interdisciplinary Longitudinal Surveys: Linking Individual Date to Organizational Data in Life-Course Analysis