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Less is Sometimes More: Consequences of Overpayment on Job Satisfaction and Absenteeism

This article investigates the responsive and purposive consequences of overpayment by studying changes in job satisfaction and absenteeism over time. Overpayment is defined as the positive deviation from the net earnings subjectively considered being fair. Two theoretical approaches are tested providing differing predictions: The self-interest model predicts that any increase in earnings always increases ...

The Impact of Within and Between Occupational Inequalities on People’s Justice Perceptions Towards their Own Earnings

This paper investigates justice perceptions of employees towards their own earnings. Earnings are decomposed into three components: (1) In returns based on human capital endowments, (2) in returns based on individual residual differences and (3) in returns based on differences between occupations. The legitimacy of these earnings components is measured via the justice assessments of employees. Based ...

Do temporary workers finance their training? Empirical evidence from Germany

Who invests in training if contracts are temporary? Empirical evidence for Germany using selection correction

This study deals with the effect of fixed-term contracts on work-related training. Though previous studies found a negative effect of fixed-term contracts on the participation in training, from the theoretical point of view it is not clear whether workers with fixed-term contracts receive less or more training, compared to workers with permanent contracts. In addition to the existing strand of literature, ...

Beware the Mean!

Bequest Motives and the Demand for Life Insurance in East Germany

Empirical studies of household saving remain inconclusive about the role of bequest motives. This may be due to the diluting effect of different tax regimes across countries and time on estimates of bequest motives. Relative to market-based economies, the former German Democratic Republic can be viewed as an experimental institutional setting where life-insurance demand was not influenced by tax considerations. ...

Social networks as a catalyst of economic change

This letter finds that East Germans with strong social ties invested earlier in a popular new financial product after reunification, while long-term ownership remained unaffected. Hence, studies of the economic impact of social networks should distinguish transitory from long-run effects.

Tax incentives, bequest motives and the demand for life insurance: evidence from a natural experiment in Germany

This paper studies the role of taxation and bequest motives in households’ demand for life insurance. We develop a stylized three-period life cycle model of life insurance demand and test its predictions regarding tax changes and bequests motives. An unexpected halving of the tax exemption limit for interest and dividend income in Germany allows us to identify the impact of changes in taxation on the ...

Do investors respond to tax reform? Evidence from a natural experiment in Germany

We present new evidence for the importance of taxation in households' investment decisions. A difference-in-difference analysis shows that a tax reform in Germany which revoked the tax exemption of life insurance returns triggered a significant increase in demand prior to the reform.

The Empirics of the Median Voter: Democracy, Redistribution and the Role of the Middle Class

The paper investigates the effectiveness of the median voter as a decisive agent in the process of redistribution. According to the previous literature, it tests several assumptions finding interesting results: The positive relation between inequality and redistribution is confirmed, but the median voter theorem seems not to be the driving force of this mechanism. Even if some results support the median ...