Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Reforming Family Taxation in Germany - Labor Supply vs. Insurance Effects

The present paper quantifies the economic consequences of eliminating the system of income splitting in Germany. We apply a dynamic simulation model with overlapping generations where single and married agents have to decide on labor supply and homework facing income and lifespan risk. The numerical exercise computes the resulting welfare changes across households and isolates aggregate efficiency ...

Household Formation, Female Labor Supply, and Savings

In this paper, we aim to quantify the impact of changing family structures on labor supply and savings in Western societies. Our dynamic general equilibrium model features both genders, and it takes into account changes in marital status as a stochastic process. The numerical results indicate that changes in household formation can partly explain the reallocation of male and female labor supply observed ...

Families and social security

The present paper quantifies the importance of family insurance for the analysis of social security. We therefore augment the standard overlapping generations model with idiosyncratic labor productivity and longevity risk in that we account for gender and marital status. We simulate the abolition of pay-as-you-go pension payments, calculate the resulting intergenerational welfare changes and isolate ...

Fertility, Female Labor Supply and Family Policy

The present paper develops an overlapping generations general equilibrium model for Germany in order to study the impact of public policy on household labor supply and fertility decisions. Starting from a benchmark equilibrium which reflects the current German family policy regime we introduce various reforms of the tax and child benefit system and quantify the consequences for birth rates and female ...

Restrictive Immigration Policy in Germany: Pains and Gains Foregone?

The Child Penalty. A Compensating Wage Differential?

Objective Trends and Perceptions of Health Status in Germany

The Willingness to Pay for Job Amenities: Evidence from Mother's Return to Work

How can we encourage unused work potentials, such as young mothers, to participate in the labor market? This study addresses this issue by providing a direct measure for the relevance of job-related amenities for mothers work decision. It is the first study to directly estimate mothers’ marginal willingness to pay (MWP) for job amenities. Its identification strategy relies on German maternity leave ...

The motherhood wage gap: What about job amenities?

Women with children tend to earn lower hourly wages than women without children - a shortfall known as the ‘motherhood wage gap’. While many studies provide evidence for this empirical fact and explore several hypotheses about its causes, the impact of motherhood on job dimensions other than wages has scarcely been investigated. In order to assess changes in women's jobs around motherhood, I use ...

Early Child Care and Child Development: For Whom it Works and Why

Many countries are currently expanding access to child care for young children. But are all children equally likely to benefit from such expansions? We address this question by adopting a marginal treatment effects framework. We study the West German setting where high quality center-based care is severely rationed and use within state differences in child care supply as exogenous variation in child ...