Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Inequality of Personal Income in the Enlarged EU: The Role of the Welfare States, Regional Cohesion Policies and Economic Integration

The spatial structure of income inequality in the enlarged EU

Data Bases and Statistical Systems: Sociology

As a rule, core databases contain quantitative survey data. Traditionally, qualitative data, for example, ethnographic field notes or transcripts of group discussions and interviews, have not been made available for secondary analysis. This is slowly changing, and a number of data archives in Europe, Australia, and the US are working on the archiving of qualitative data. Quantitative social science ...

Perceived Economic Uncertainty and Fertility: Evidence From a Labor Market Reform

Whereas in theory individuals tend to postpone fertility decisions in times of economic uncertainty, empirical evidence on that question is scarce. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (N=4,548), the authors estimated the effect of economic concerns on the probability of becoming pregnant in the next year. They exploited exogenous variation in economic concerns induced by the announcement ...

Learning intensity effects in students’ mental and physical health – Evidence from a large scale natural experiment in Germany

In this study, we analyze the health effects of a recent education reform in Germany exposing students to increased learning intensity. The reform shortened the higher secondary education track by one year. As the overall curriculum required for graduation was held constant, this led to an increase in instruction hours in the remaining school years. The reform was introduced at different points in ...

Income and Employment Effects of Trade and Offshoring in Modern Labor Markets (Dissertation)

Institute for the Study of Labor - IZA Highlights 1998-2008

Does the Calculation Hold? The Fiscal Balance of Migration to Denmark and Germany

Calculating the net fiscal effects of immigration not just for a fiscal year but over the lifespan of immigrant cohorts accentuates the assets and deficits in migration and integration policies and their long-term potential. The less national policies concentrate on a labor migrant selection process according to economic criteria, the higher the risk of generating economic losses or only a reduced ...

Geographically Referenced Data in Social Science - A service paper for SOEP data users

Do Employers Have More Monopsony Power in Slack Labor Markets?

This article confronts monopsony theory’s predictions regarding workers’ wages with observed wage patterns over the business cycle. Using German administrative data for the years 1985 to 2010 and an estimation framework based on duration models, the authors construct a time series of the labor supply elasticity to the firm and estimate its relationship to the unemployment rate. They find that firms ...