Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Demographic Change and Regional Labour Markets: The Case of Eastern Germany

Demographic change will be one of the most challenging issues for industrialized economies in the decades to come. In this paper, we focus on the impact of demographic change on labour markets. By setting up a stylized model of a regional labour market, we are able to analyze the interaction of labour demand and supply during demographic transitions. The simulation results for eastern Germany, a forerunner ...

Individual Determinants of Recalls

Non-Take-Up of Student Financial Aid: A Microsimulation for Germany

This paper estimates the percentage of students who do not take up their federal need-based student financial aid entitlements and sheds light on determinants of this behavior. Against the background that educational mobility in Germany is low although extensive student financial aid for needy students is available, it is crucial to know whether students assert their claims for student aid at all. ...

Are political representatives more risk-loving than the electorate? Evidence from German federal and state parliaments

Political representatives frequently make decisions with far-reaching implications for citizens and societies. Most of these decisions are choices in situations in which the probabilities of gains and losses are hard to estimate. Although decision-making is crucial to politics, existing research has hardly ever addressed the political representation of traits that notably influence decision-making. ...

Believe In A Just Wage? The Effect Of Personality On Labour Market Outcomes

This paper examines the impact of students' non-cognitive skills locus of control and self-esteem on their decision to enroll at college, and on their wages once they enter the labour market. We extend previous research in several ways: a model of belief formation suggests a pathway by which these traits affect economic outcomes and allows to derive testable predictions concerning individuals' ...

On the Misery of Losing Self-employment

German Socio-Economic Panel data is used to show that the decrease in life satisfaction caused by an increase in the probability of losing work is higher when self-employed than when paid employed. Further estimations reveal that becoming unemployed reduces selfemployed workers’ satisfaction considerably more than salaried workers’ satisfaction. These results indicate that losing self-employment is ...

Changing Identity: Retiring from Unemployment

Using German panel data, we show that unemployed people are, on average, less satisfied with their life than employed people, but they report a substantial increase in their life satisfaction upon retirement. We interpret this finding using identity theory. Retirement raises the identity utility of the unemployed because it changes the social norms they are supposed to adhere to. The social norm for ...

Looking Back in Anger? Retirement and Unemployment Scarring

Previous studies find that past unemployment reduces life satisfaction even after reemployment for non-monetary reasons (unemployment scarring). It is not clear, however, whether this scarring is only caused by employment-related factors, such as worsened working conditions, or increased future uncertainty as regards income and employment. Using German panel data, we identify non-employment-related ...

Income in Jeopardy: How Losing Employment Affects the Willingness to Take Risks

Using German panel data, we assess the causal effect of job loss, and thus of an extensive income shock, on risk attitude. In line with predictions of expected utility reasoning about absolute risk aversion, losing one’s job reduces the willingness to take risks. This effect strengthens in previous hourly wage, begins to manifest itself as soon as an employee perceives the threat of job loss and is ...

Locus of Control and Performance Appraisal

This work contributes to the literature demonstrating an important role for psychological traits in labor market decisions. We show that West German workers with an internal locus of control sort into jobs with performance appraisals. Appraisals provide workers who believe they control their environment a tool to demonstrate their value and achieve their goals. We confirm that workers who are risk ...