Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

One Size Does Not Fit All: Alternative Values-Based ‘Recipes’ for Life Satisfaction

In most previous research on the determinants of Life Satisfaction (LS), there has been an implicit assumption that ‘one size fits all’. That is, it has usually been assumed that the covariates of LS are the same for everyone, or at least everyone in the Western world. In this paper, using data from the long-running German Socio-Economic Panel (1984-), we estimate statistical models to assess the effects ...

The Importance of Wealth for Subjective Well-Being

It is widely assumed that since income is usually found to account for a relatively small proportion of the variance across individuals in self-reported well-being, money does not matter for personal happiness. This hypothesis is reexamined in this paper by including measures of household wealth alongside the more usual household income measure in regression equations of life satisfaction. Using data ...

Happiness and Longevity: Unhappy People Die Young, Otherwise Happiness Probably Makes No Difference

Based on analysis of long-running panel surveys in Germany and Australia, we offer a revised assessment of the relationship between subjective well-being (happiness, life satisfaction) and longevity. Most previous research has reported a linear positive relationship; the happier people are, the longer they live (Diener and Chan in Appl Psychol Health Well-Being 3:1–43, 2011. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1758-0854.2010.01045.x). ...

A Metadata-Driven Approach to Panel Data Management and its Application in DDI on Rails

This dissertation designs a metadata-driven infrastructure for panel data that aims to increase both the quality and the usability of the resulting research data. Data quality determines whether the data appropriately represent a particular aspect of our reality. Usability originates notably from a conceivable documentation, accessibility of the data, and interoperability with tools and other data ...

Integrating Personality Psychology into Economics

This paper reviews the problems and potential benefits of integrating personality psychology into economics. Economists have much to learn from and contribute to personality psychology.

Hard Evidence on Soft Skills

This paper summarizes recent evidence on what achievement tests measure; how achievement tests relate to other measures of “cognitive ability” like IQ and grades; the important skills that achievement tests miss or mismeasure, and how much these skills matter in life. Achievement tests miss, or perhaps more accurately, do not adequately capture, soft skills – personality traits, goals, motivations, ...

The Duration and Extent of Poverty - Is Germany a Two-Thirds-Society?

German Reunification: Welfare Gains and Losses East and West

A framework of welfare accounts (Juster and Stafford, 1985; Headey, 1993; see also Goodin et al., 1999) is used to assess gains and losses to East and West Germans in the post-reunification period, 1990-97. The welfare accounts have three segments: a capital/stocks account, an income/flows account and a subjective welfare/psychic income account. This framework differs from conventional welfare economic ...

(Not) Sharing the Fruits of Growth: The Impact of Governments and Markets on Living Standards in Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States, 1986-1995

This paper reviews changing income distributions in the United States, Germany, and the Netherlands, treating the three countries as leading economic performers in ‘the three worlds of welfare capitalism.’ Previous analyses have shown that earnings dispersion is increasing. The potential impact of government through the tax and transfer system has been largely ignored. It is shown that in the United ...

Who enjoys the fruits of growth? Impact of governments and markets on living standards in Germany, the Netherlands and the U.S.A., 1987-1996

The 1980s and 1990s have been decades of quite good economic growth in North America and much of Western Europe. But how have the fruits of growth been shared? This paper reviews changing income distributions in the U.S., Germany and the Netherlands. These three countries may be taken as exemplars and leading economic performers in “the three worlds of welfare capitalism” (Esping-Andersen, 1990). The ...