External refereed essays

Life Expectancy and Parental Education

This study analyses the relationship between life expectancy and parental education. Based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study and survival analysis models, we show that maternal education is related to children's life expectancy – even after controlling for children's own level of education. This applies equally to daughters and sons as well as to children's further life expectancies ...

The Impact of Competition Policy Enforcement on the Functioning of EU Energy Markets

We investigate the impact of competition policy enforcement on the functioning of European energy markets while accounting for sectoral regulation. For this purpose, we compile a novel dataset on the European Commission's (EC) and EU member states' competition policy decisions in energy markets and combine it with firm- and sector-level data. We find that EC merger policy has a positive and robust ...

Timing of Communication

Using an experiment, we demonstrate that a communication regime in which a worker communicates about his intended effort is less effective in: (i) soliciting truthful information; and (ii) motivating effort than one in which he communicates about his past effort. Our experiment uses a real-effort task, which additionally allows us to demonstrate the effects of communication on effort over time. We ...

Gibt es repräsentative Umfragen?

The Effects of Second-Generation Rent Control on Land Values

Second generation rent control seeks to prevent negative quantity effects by exempting newly built units. The artificially lowered rent in the controlled segment makes renting attractive for households that would otherwise not have rented in the market, replacing households with higher willingness to pay for housing. These households bid up prices in the free market segment, giving rise to an opposite-sign ...

One Size Does Not Fit All: Alternative Values-Based ‘Recipes’ for Life Satisfaction

In most previous research on the determinants of Life Satisfaction (LS), there has been an implicit assumption that ‘one size fits all’. That is, it has usually been assumed that the covariates of LS are the same for everyone, or at least everyone in the Western world. In this paper, using data from the long-running German Socio-Economic Panel (1984-), we estimate statistical models to assess the effects ...

Austerity, Inequality, and Private Debt Overhang

Using panel data of 17 OECD countries for 1980–2011, we find that the distributional consequences of fiscal consolidations depend significantly on the level of private indebtedness. Austerity leads to a strong and persistent increase in income inequality during periods of private debt overhang. In contrast, there are no discernible distributional effects when private debt is low. This result is robust ...

A Quasi-Experimental Evaluation of Marijuana Policies and Youth Marijuana Use

Background: Marijuana use carries risks for adolescents’ well-being, making it essential to evaluate effects of recent marijuana policies.Objectives: This study sought to delineate associations between state-level shifts in decriminalization and medical marijuana laws (MML) and adolescent marijuana use.Methods: Using data on 861,082 adolescents (14 to 18+ years; 51% female) drawn from 1999 to 2015 ...

Sampling in Times of High Immigration: The Survey Process of the IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees

Over the course of 2013 to 2016, over one million asylum seekers arrived in Germany, around 890,000 of them in 2015 alone. The growing refugee population posed a major challenge for Germany’s policy makers, civic administrators, and society at large, in finding new approaches to registration procedures, housing, and social and economic integration. To design policies and programs that meet these needs, ...

Health-Related Life Cycle Risks and Public Insurance

Based on a dynamic life cycle model, this study analyzes health-related risks of consumption and old-age poverty. The model allows for health effects on employment risks, on productivity, on longevity, the correlation between health risks, productivity and preferences, and the financial incentives of the German public insurance schemes. The estimation uses data on male employees and an extended expectation-maximization ...

European Electricity Sector Decarbonization under Different Levels of Foresight

The European Union has set out to reduce the carbon intensity of its electricity generation substantially, as defined in the European Roadmap 2050. This paper analyses the impact of foresight towards decarbonization targets on the investment decisions in the European electricity sector using a specific model developed by the authors called dynELMOD. Incorporating the climate targets makes the investment ...

Economic Aspects of Subjective Attitudes towards the German Minimum-Wage Reform

Despite skepticism among experts about the effects of a minimum wage, there is remarkably widespread public support for such policies. Using representative survey data from 2015 and 2016, we investigate the subjective attitudes driving public support for Germany's minimum-wage reform. We find that socioeconomic characteristics and political orientations explain a minor part of the variation in attitudes, ...

Die frühe Bildung und Betreuung in Deutschland: Familien- und Bildungspolitik oder beides?

Die öffentlich finanzierte Kindertagesbetreuung ist zu einem elementaren Bestandteil des kindlichen Aufwachsens in Deutschland geworden – sowohl aus einer Perspektive der Vereinbarkeit von Familie und Beruf als auch der frühen Förderung von Kindern. Sie bewegt sich damit im Spannungsfeld zwischen Familien- und Bildungspolitik. Mit diesem Spannungsfeld befasst sich dieser Beitrag und plädiert letztlich ...

Punishing Potential Mothers? Evidence for Statistical Employer Discrimination from a Natural Experiment

Before 2006, large firms in Germany were obliged to pay for the generous maternity protection of female employees, such that firms’ expected costs depended on employees’ gender and age. From 2006 onward, all firms paid for maternity protection by contributing to the statutory health insurance system, where the contribution depends only on the number of employees and their wages and is thus independent ...

Infrastrukturinvestitionen statt Subventionen

Die Infrastrukturinvestitionen nehmen seit Jahren ab. Insbesondere die Gemeinden haben drastisch weniger investiert, nicht wegen eines geringeren Bedarfs, sondern wegen erheblicher Finanzprobleme in der Vergangenheit. Über den langen Zeitraum sind auch Planungs- und Genehmigungskapazitäten verloren gegangen. Entscheidend dafür, dass die Kommunen ihre Investitionstätigkeit wieder aufnehmen können, ist ...

Germany and Climate Protection: From Model Pupil to Laggard: Why Coal Phasing out Makes Economic and Ecological Sense

Germany has gone from being a pioneer to a laggard when it comes to climate protection. The proportion of Germany's most polluting energy source, lignite, is higher than ever before. Renewable energies are being thwarted. There is no sustainable transport policy that focuses on traffic avoidance, relocation, and electrification as well as environmental, climate, and health protection—not even after ...

Sexual Activity, Sexual Thoughts, and Intimacy among Older Adults: Links with Physical Health and Psychosocial Resources for Successful Aging

Research on close relationships in later life has received increased attention over the past decade. However, little is known about sexuality and intimacy in old age. Using cross-sectional data from the Berlin Aging Study II (BASE-II; Mage = 68 years, SD = 3.68; 50% women; N = 1,514), we examine age differences in behavioral (sexual activity), cognitive (sexual thoughts), and emotional (intimacy) facets ...

Rigging Economics

Advances in horizontal drilling have significantly increased US oil and gas production, but it is not clear whether the industry is viable if oil prices continue to be low. Researchers now estimate the break-even price for oil and gas from tight formations and analyse the factors that affect investment in drilling rigs.

The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP)

Using the Dirichlet Process to Form Clusters of People’s Concerns in the Context of Future Party Identification

Connections between interindividual differences and people’s behavior has been widely researched in various contexts, often by using top-down group comparisons to explain interindividual differences. In contrast, in this study, we apply a bottom-up approach in which we identify meaningful clusters in people’s concerns about various areas of life (e.g., their own health, their financial situation, the ...