Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Essays on variable risk attitudes

Do Firms Obey the Law When They Fire Workers? Social Criteria and Severance Payments in Germany

Purpose – Employment protection legislation defines social criteria according to which firms can dismiss workers. If firms evade the law, then negotiation about compensation begins. To reduce the legal and financial uncertainty often associated with ex post bargaining, the German government stipulate severance payments in the case of mutual agreements in law in 2004. This paper aims to examine whether ...

Don’t worry, be flexible? Job satisfaction among flexible workers

This paper investigates whether workers in flexible employment relationships show lower job satisfaction than workers with permanent job contracts. Our results show that looking only at the formal job security provided by the contract may lead to misleading conclusions about job satisfaction. We find, using longitudinal data for Germany, that it is not the formal job security provided by the contractual ...

Labour market integration of refugee’s in Germany: Is there evidence for a refugee gap?

In this thesis, I examine the existence of a refugee gap in Germany. In more detail, I research the differences in net income and employment rate for immigrants with different motives for migration. In order to do that I use data from the IAB-SOEP Migration Sample which is a joint project from the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) and the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) at the German Institute for ...

A Joint Hazard-Longitudinal Model of the Timing of Migration, Immigrant Quality, and Labor Market Assimilation

This paper develops and estimates a joint hazard-longitudinal (JHL) model of the timing of migration and labor market assimilation – two processes that have been assumed to be independent in the existing literature. The JHL model accounts for the endogenous age of entry in estimating the returns to years since migration by allowing cross-equation correlations of random intercepts with individual rates ...

Limits to Wage Growth: Understanding the Wage Divergence between Immigrants and Natives

This study finds evidence of wage divergence between immigrants and natives in Germany using a country-wide household panel from 1984 to 2014. We incorporate the possibility of wage divergence into a two-period model of economic assimilation by modeling the differences in the efficiency of human capital production and prices per unit of human capital between immigrants and natives. Individual rates ...

Does Education Affect Cognitive Abilities?

We analyze the causal effect of education on old-age cognitive abilities using German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) data and regional variation in mandatory years of schooling and the supply of schools. Our outcome variable is the score an individual reaches in an ultra-short intelligence test. We explain this score, using instrumented education. Instrumental variable estimation is necessary since on ...

Reanalyzing Zero Returns to Education in Germany

We analyze the effect of education on wages using German Socio-Economic Panel data and regional variation in mandatory years of schooling and the supply of schools. This allows us to estimate more than one local average treatment effect and heterogeneous effects for different groups of compliers. Our results are in line with previous studies that do not find an effect of compulsory schooling on wages ...

Heterogeneity in Marginal Non-monetary Returns to Higher Education

In this paper we estimate the effects of college education on cognitive abilities and health exploiting exogenous variation in college availability and student loan regulations. By means of semiparametric local instrumental variables techniques we estimate marginal treatment effects in an environment of essential heterogeneity. The results suggest heterogeneous but always positive effects on cognitive ...

Cognitive Functions Buffer Age Differences in Technology Ownership

Background: Technology plays a major role for enhancing quality of life and everyday competence in old age. Mechanic and pragmatic cognitive functions are known to serve as resources when using technology in everyday life. Not much is known about the differential role of mechanic and pragmatic cognitive functions when moderating reduced technology ownership in old age. Objective: In this research, ...