Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Do Demographics Prevent Consumer Aggregates from Reflecting Micro-level Preferences?

Most simulated micro-founded macro models use solely consumer-demand aggregates in order to estimate preference parameters of a representative consumer, for use in policy evaluation. Focusing on dynamic models with time-separable preferences, we show that aggregation holds if, and only if, momentary utility functions fall in the Identical-Shape Harmonic Absolute-Risk Aversion (ISHARA) utility class, ...

About time: Daylight Saving Time transition and individual well-being

Daylight Saving Time is controversial due to its alleged negative impact on individual well-being. Using panel data from Germany we find evidence that the transition to summer time has negative influence on general life satisfaction and mood, which is stronger for those in full time employment.

Unemployment and the Separation of Married Couples

This article analyzes whether unemployment has an effect on the splitting of a marital relationship. The study uses 40 000 observations on unemployment spells and marital status during the period from 1987 to 1996. Random effects probit and conditional likelihood logit models for panel data are applied. Using several control variables, it was confirmed that unemployment does actually lead to a higher ...

The Causes and Consequences of Adopting a Works Council

This paper reports on the results of a study on the determinants of the introduction of a works council and its consequences.We consider the effects of expectations concerning the economic conditions of a firm on the probability of adopting a works council. This is done, on the one hand, by use of employees’ expectations on employment security and, on the other hand, by including forecasts of the management ...

Impact of Educational and Religious Homogamy on Marital Stability

Using a rich panel data set from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we test whether spouses who are similar to each other in certain respects have a lower probability of divorce than dissimilar spouses. We focus on the effect of homogamy with respect to education and church attendance. Gary Becker's theory of marriage predicts that usually, positive assortative mating is optimal. Our results, however, ...

Labor division between wife and husband and the risk of divorce: New evidence for Germany

Using German panel data from 1984 to 2007, we analyze the impact of labor division between husband and wife on the risk of divorce. Gary Becker's theory of marriage predicts that specialization in domestic and market work, respectively, reduces the risk of separation. Traditionally, the breadwinner role is assigned to the husband, however, female labor force participation and their wages have ...

System-Based Analysis of Income Distribution Impacts on Mobility Behaviour

How to do emprirical economics

Demand-side determinants of rising hospital admissions in Germany: the role of ageing

In this study, we investigated the relationship between changes in demand-side determinants and changes in hospital admissions. We used longitudinal market-wide data, including a novel detailed measure of population morbidity. To assess the effect of ageing, we interacted age with shifts in the population structure for both the surviving population and the population in their last year of life. We ...

The impact of having children on domain-specific life satisfaction: A quasi-experimental longitudinal investigation using the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) data

Longitudinal studies have documented improvements in parents’ life satisfaction due to childbearing, followed by postpartum adaptation back to baseline. However, the details underlying this process remain largely unexplored. Based on past literature, set-point theory, and results from an exploratory sample, we investigated empirically how first childbirth affected satisfaction with specific domains ...