Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Valuing air quality using the life satisfaction approach

I use the life satisfaction approach to value air quality, combining individual-level panel and highresolution SO2 data. To avoid simultaneity problems, I construct a novel instrument exploiting the natural experiment created by the mandated scrubber installation at power plants, with wind directions dividing counties into treatment and control groups. I find a negative effect of pollution on well-being ...

Why Does Unemployment Hurt the Employed? Evidence from the Life Satisfaction Gap between the Public and Private Sectors

High unemployment rates entail substantial costs to the working population in terms of reduced subjective well-being. This paper studies the importance of individual economic security, in particular job security, by exploiting sector-specific institutional differences in the exposure to economic shocks. Public servants have stricter dismissal protection and face a lower risk of their organization becoming ...

The Happiness Gains From Sorting and Matching in the Labor Market

Sorting of people on the labor market not only assures the most productive use of valuable skills but also generates individual utility gains if people experience an optimal match between job characteristics and their preferences. Based on individual data on subjective well-being it is possible to assess these latter gains from matching. We introduce a two-equation ordered probit model with endogenous ...

Self-selection and subjective-well being: Copula models with an application to public and private sector work

We discuss a new approach to specifying and estimating ordered probit models with endogenous switching, or with binary endogenous regressor, based on copula functions. These models provide a framework of analysis for self-selection in economic well-being equations, where assigment of regressors may be choice based, resulting from well-being maximization, rather than random. In an application to public ...

Self-selection models for public and private sector job satisfaction

We discuss a class of copula-based ordered probit models with endogenous switching. Such models can be useful for the analysis of self-selection in subjective well-being equations in general, and job satisfaction in particular, where assignment of regressors may be endogenous rather than random, resulting from individual maximization of well-being. In an application to public and private sector job ...

Can Happiness Change? The Short- and Long-Term Relationship Between Subjective Well-Being and External Circumstances (Dissertation)

The development of subjective well-being

Subjective well-being (SWB) encompasses cognitive components such as life satisfaction and affective components such as positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA). This chapter provides an overview of the current state of research on the development of these different components of SWB, focusing primarily on describing and explaining the development of SWB across adulthood. Cross-sectional and longitudinal ...

Towards a Framework for Assessing Family Policies in the EU

Private Schools in Germany. Attendance Up, But Not Among the Children of Less Educated Parents

The percentage of children attending private school in Germany has increased sharply in recent years. According to data of the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), 7% of all students now attend private school. The SOEP, which contains a range of household data, shows that the children of parents with a university entry degree ("Abitur") are more likely to attend private school than those with ...

BIOEDU (Beta Version): Biographical Data on Educational Participation and Transitions in the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP)