Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Bonus Payments, Hierarchy Levels and Tenure: Theoretical Considerations and Empirical Evidence

Using data on executive compensation for the German chemical industry, we investigate the relevance of two theoretical approaches that focus on bonuses as part of a long term wage policy of a firm. The first approach argues that explicit bonuses serve as substitutes for implicit career concerns. The second approach claims that bonuses are used as complements to an executive’s internal career. Our data ...

Determinants of Further Training: Evidence for Germany

We explore the relevance and development of further training in private sector firms using the German Socio-Economic Panel, which is a representative sample of German residents. We focus on formal training and explore possible individual and job-based determinants of its incidence. We also show changes over time during a 20-year observation period from 1989 to 2008. Most hypotheses are supported by ...

A Comparative Analysis of Augmented Wealth in Germany and the United States

Research on wealth inequality usually focuses on real and financial assets, while (public) pension wealth receives little attention. This paper provides for the first time evidence on the levels and composition of and inequalities in households’ positions of augmented wealth – the sum of net worth and pension wealth – in two countries with distinct welfare regimes, the United States and Germany. Micro ...

Imputation of Item-Non-Response on Income Questions in the SOEP 1984-2002

Germany's middle class has shrunk: incomes increasingly polarised from 2000 to 2005

The Shrinking German Middle Class - Signs of Long-Term Polarization in Disposable Income?

Country case study--Germany

The Great Recession (GR) of the late 2000s had a significant but fortunately only temporary impact on the German labour market and economy as a whole. By the last quarter of 2010, nominal GDP had already returned to pre-recession levels and unemployment had reached its lowest levels since reunification. Scholars have described this striking resilience of the German labour market as ‘Germany’s jobs ...

Reduction in Income Inequality Faltering

Inequality of disposable incomes in Germany has decreased slightly since its peak in 2005. However, this trend did not continue in 2011. The most important reasons for this were the inequality in market incomes, including capital incomes, which had increased again. Besides this finding, the updated analyses of personal income distribution based on the Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) show that the ...

Real Income Rose Significantly between 1991 and 2014 on Average – First Indication of Return to Increased Income Inequality

The real disposable income of private households in Germany, accounting for inflation, rose by 12 percent between 1991 and 2014. This is what the present study based on data from the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) has shown. However, the trends varied greatly depending on income group. While the middle income segment rose by more than eight percent, the highest income segment increased by up to 26 percent. ...

Income distribution in Germany: Real income on the rise since 1991 but more people with low incomes

Between 1991 and 2015, the real disposable, needs-adjusted income of persons in private households in Germany rose by 15 percent on average. The majority of the population has benefited from the growth in real income, but the groups at the lower end of the income distribution have not. Inequality in both market and disposable needs-adjusted household income has remained high. These are the findings ...