Life Course and Inequality Research Group
Events

Growing Up with Disasters: Early Memories and the Origins of Patience

This paper examines the long-term impact of childhood exposure to aggregate shocks on intertemporal decision-making. Drawing on survey data from 80,000 individuals in 76 countries and exploiting within-country, cross-cohort variation in exposure to natural and man-made disasters, I show that such shocks during childhood significantly reduce patience in adulthood. The effects are concentrated...

Working Longer: The Effects of a Higher Retirement Age on Work-Related Health Investments During the Working Life

(joint with Johannes Geyer, Peter Haan, Felix Weinhardt) Health investments are vital for maintaining physical and mental well-being throughout working life, and their importance is amplified with rising retirement ages due to demographic aging. This is the first study to examine if a longer working life causally increases institutionalized health investments. We explore the impact of a German...

The Power of Stereotypes and how they influence labour market outcomes (with Susanne Veit and Johanna Hildebrandt)

In this paper, we draw on two key models of stereotyping, the Stereotype Content Model (SCM) and the Agency-Beliefs-Communion (ABC) to study whether stereotypes associated to ethnic minorities predict discrimination in hiring in the German labor market. In study 1, we examined the content of the stereotypes that Germans ascribe to 38 ethnic minorities, drawing on a large-scale online survey (N=2,3...

Early retirement for early starters - A well targeted policy for people with high job demand?

(joint work with Lars Felder, Johannes Geyer, and Peter Haan) Despite growing demographic pressure, a reform in Germany has lowered the full retirement age (FRA) temporarily for early starters. In this paper we analyze whether the reform was well targeted. Specifically, we study if the early retirement scheme benefits workers with high job strain or if workers with better jobs and the potential...

Introduction to systematic and scoping literature reviews

Timing of School Entry and Personality Traits in Adulthood

This paper investigates the long-run consequences of a later school entry for personality traits. For identification, we exploit the statutory cutoff rules for school enrollment in Germany within a regression discontinuity design. We find that relatively older school starters have persistently lower levels of neuroticism in adulthood. This effect is entirely driven by women, which has important...

Occupational recognition of refugees: Effects on labor market outcomes, remittances, and life satisfaction (with Selina Gangl and Matthias Collischon)

Many high-income economies strive to integrate recently immigrated refugees and asylum-seekers into their labor markets. We contribute to the discussion of relevant policy tools and use rich survey data that are matched to precise administrative records on refugee immigrants to Germany. We study the impact of occupational recognition decisions on refugee outcomes. Applying a difference-in...

Policy Uncertainty, Misinformation and Statutory Retirement Age Reform

This study examines the impact of Statutory Retirement Age (SRA) reforms on individual behavior and welfare in the presence of policy uncertainty and misinformation. We develop a structural life-cycle model in which individuals are uncertain about the future evolution of the SRA and misinformed about its importance. We derive individuals’ expectations and information on the SRA from self-elicited...

Artificial Intelligence and Workers’ Well-Being (with Osea Giuntella and Johannes König)

This study explores the relationship between artificial intelligence (AI) and workers’ wellbeing and mental health using longitudinal survey data from Germany (2000-2020). We construct a measure of individual exposure to AI technology based on the occupation in which workers in our sample were first employed and explore an event study design and a difference-in-differences approach to compare AI...

Negative labor supply shock and firms (joint with Peter Haan, Johannes Geyer, Jan Nimczik)

Part I: Lars Felder, "Negative labor supply shock and firms" (Joint with Peter Haan, Johannes Geyer, Jan Nimczik) In times of an increasing scarcity of workers, Germany has in a rare move decreased the retirement age for a sizeable section of the working force. This paper investigates the effect of this negative labor supply shock on firm and individual level outcomes using matched employer...

Who Benefits from Place-based Policies? Evidence from Matched Employer-Employee Data (with Philipp Grunau, Florian Hoffmann, and Thomas Lemieux)

We study the wage and employment effects of a German place-based policy using a research design that exploits conditionally exogenous EU-wide rules governing the program parameters at the regional level. The place-based program subsidizes investments to create jobs with a subsidy rate that varies across labor market regions. The analysis uses matched data on the universe of establishments and...

Divorce as a Liberation from Violence: The Role of Legal Protections and Women’s Shelters

Does increased legal infrastructure empower victims to leave abusive relationships? Structural barriers often prevent victims of intimate partner violence from seeking help and leaving their abuser, with two-thirds of female victims in Europe neither reporting incidents to the police nor accessing support services. I study the introduction of the 2002 Violence Protection Act in Germany, which...

The impact of heat exposure on the well-being of urban residents (with Felix Zwies)

Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of heat events. Understanding the impact of heat exposure is crucial due to its wide-ranging economic and social consequences, including increased energy demand, healthcare costs, reduced labor productivity, and exacerbation of social inequities in urban areas. In this context, the project's objective is to investigate the impact of heat...

Gender Disparities in French Academic Careers: A Multi-Stage Analysis of Selection

This project examines the French academic pipeline to identify when and why women become underrepresented in faculty positions: I investigate whether they are less likely to apply, less likely to succeed or a combination of both. Using comprehensive administrative data combining Thèses.fr doctoral records and administrative data from the Conseil National des Universités (CNU), I analyze gender...