Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Labour market integration, occupational uncertainties, and fertility choices in Germany and the UK

Contrasting the conservative German welfare state with the liberal market economy of the United Kingdom, this paper examines how each welfare regime affects the first-birth decisions of men and women under the conditions of either high labour market integration (full-time work in a permanent position) or occupational uncertainty (part-time work or work with a fixed-term contract). The results, which ...

Subjective Well-Being and Air Quality in Germany

This paper analyses the relation between air quality and individual life satisfaction in Germany. Life satisfaction data from the German socio-economic panel is connected with daily county pollution in terms of carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and ozone from 1998 to 2008. The assumed microeconometric happiness function is estimated considering individual fixed effects. Ozone has a significant negative ...

Political Participation / National Election Study

The chapter gives an overview of recent developments within participation and electoral research, and discusses the current state of affairs with regard to data provision and access. It concludes with several recommendations: (a) to tag a small number of key political variables as constant elements of the future question programmes of both the ALLBUS and the GSOEP, thereby creating substantial amounts ...

The Influence of Life-Cycle Events on Partisanship: Long-term Evidence from The German Socio-Economic Panel

Shaky attachments: Individual-level stability and change of partisanship among West German voters, 1984 - 2001

Do Optional Deductibles Reduce the Number of Doctor Visits? Empirical Evidence with German Data

Deductibles in health insurance are often regarded as a means to contain health care costs when individuals exhibit moral hazard. However, in the absence of moral hazard, voluntarily chosen deductibles may instead lead to self-selection into different insurance contracts. We use a set of new variables in the German Socioeconomic Panel for the years 2002, 2004, and 2006 that measure individual health ...

Insurance State and the Number of Doctor Visits. A Latent Class Panel Approach with German Data

Reducing the Number of Doctor Visits by Supply-Side Regulations

We analyze the effect of the introduction of a fixed budget for the ambulatory care sector in 1993, the introduction of individual practice budgets in 1997, and the tightening of the budget in real terms thereafter on the lengths of treatments of patients using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel over the period from 1985 to 2006. With a random effects-type two-part model in a difference-in-differences ...

Risk aversion, health behaviour, and adverse selection in the German market for private supplementary health insurance

Direct evidence of risk aversion as a source of advantageous selection in health insurance

Using the self-stated degree of risk aversion regarding health from the GSOEP we find some evidence for risk aversion being a source of advantageous selection. Risk averse men more often procure supplementary insurance for hospital visits despite needing the additional coverage less.