Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

The Decline of the Middle Class: An International Perspective

Feminist Explanations for the Feminization of Poverty

Income guarantees and the equity-efficiency tradeoff

This paper examines the tradeoffs inherent in guaranteed income proposals. Its perspective is international, using the Luxembourg Income Study and asking whether economic efficiency suffers when governments make greater efforts to protect the poor. Using two different measures of productivity growth, we find no big tradeoff between equity and efficiency. That is, during those times and in those countries ...

Policies To Reduce Child Poverty: Child Allowances VS. Tax Exemptions For Children

Biased by Success and Failure: How Unemployment Shapes Stated Locus of Control

We test the stability of locus of control, a measure that has been attributed substantial explanatory power for economic outcomes since it depicts how much people believe in their ability to affect life outcomes. Using the German Socio-Economic Panel, we find that a job loss due to a plant closure has no long-lasting effect on locus of control. The common assumption of its stability is thus not rejected. ...

Precautionary savings by natives and immigrants in Germany

This article analyses the savings behaviour of natives and immigrants in Germany. It is argued that uncertainty about future income and legal status (in case of immigrants) is a key component in the determination of the level of precautionary savings. Using the German dataset, we exploit a natural experiment arising from a change in the nationality law in Germany to estimate the importance of precautionary ...

The Link Between Political Participation and Life Satisfaction: A Three Wave Causal Analysis of the German SOEP Household Panel

Is there a relationship between political participation and individual life satisfaction? The idea that political participation makes people more satisfied with their lives has long been debated. However, the existing empirical research has not been very successful in demonstrating that such a relationship exists while some studies show that instead it is individual life satisfaction that impacts political ...

Assimilation and the Earnings of Guestworkers in Germany

Continuous Training in Germany

Money and Happiness: Evidence from the Industry Wage Structure

There is a well-established positive correlation between life-satisfaction measures and income in individual level cross-sectional data. This paper attempts to provide some evidence on whether this correlation reflects causality running from money to happiness. I use industry wage differentials as instruments for income. This is based on the idea that at least part of these differentials are due to ...