Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Who Can Buy Happiness? Personality Traits Moderate the Effects of Stable Income Differences and Income Fluctuations on Life Satisfaction

The present research tested whether the Big Five personality dimensions - extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience - moderate the effects of income on life satisfaction. The authors analyzed data from three large-sample, nationally representative, longitudinal studies: the British Household Panel Survey, the German Socio-Economic Panel Study, and the Household ...

Optimal taxation, social contract and the four worlds of welfare capitalism

Earnings inequality in Germany: A decomposition-analysis

Several studies have shown that income inequality has risen in Germany until 2005. Less focus was put on the rise of earnings inequality which continued to rise until 2010. We distinguish different groups in the labour market with respect to working-time, gender and region by exploiting data from the German Socio-Economic panel (SOEP) for the years 1995 till 2014. Using the decomposition of the Theil1-index ...

The happy artist? An empirical application of the work-preference model

The artistic labor market is marked by several adversities, such as low wages, above-average unemployment, and constrained underemployment. Nevertheless, it attracts many young people. The number of students exceeds the available jobs by far. A potential explanation for this puzzle is that artistic work might result in exceptionally high job satisfaction, a conjecture that has been mentioned at various ...

Long-Term Unemployment during the Transition to a Market Economy: Eastern Germany after Unification

Extended Benefit-Entitlement Periods and the Duration of Unemployment in West Germany

Germany, as most other European countries, has been plagued by a persistently high level of long–term unemployment since the early 1980's. In contrast, long–term unemployment is much less of a problem in the United States. One potential reason for the different structure of unemployment relates to institutional differences in unemployment compensation systems. The German system is characterized ...

Unemployment persistence in the West German labour market: negative duration dependence or sorting?

The paper tests for negative duration dependence in West German unemployment in the presence of unobserved population heterogeneity. The analysis is based of a microeconometric model estimated on the German Socio-Economic Panel covering the period 1983 to 1995. I find that, after controlling for observed and unobserved population heterogeneity, individual re-employment probabilities are constant or ...

The labor market for older workers in Germany

The paper describes labor market developments for older workers in Germany in recent years. It provides a a summary of the main changes in labor market and pension policies in Germany which might have contributed to these developments. The main part of the paper offers, on the basis of micro data from the Socioeconomic Panel (SOEP), empirical evidence on changes in employment and long-term unemployment, ...

Ökosteuer hat zu geringerer Umweltbelastung des Verkehrs beigetragen

Allein durch die ökologische Steuerreform sind die Preise für Benzin und Diesel zwischen 1998 und 2003 in Deutschland in mehreren Schritten um über 20 Prozent gestiegen. Der Großteil des aus der Erhöhung der Energiesteuersätze resultierenden Aufkommens wurde zur Stabilisierung der Rentenversicherungsbeiträge verwendet. Hat die Ökosteuer neben diesem fiskalischen Ziel auch einen Beitrag zur nachhaltigen ...

Real Wage Cyclicality in Germany and the UK: New Results Using Panel Data