Based on samples from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) 1984 to 2004, this paper investigates the evolution of wages and wage inequality in Germany. Between 1984 and 1994 wages for prime age dependent male workers increased on average by 23 percent and the wage distribution in West Germany was fairly stable. Between 1994 and 2004 average wages rose by about 8 percent in West Germany and 28 percent ...
The aim of this paper is to estimate income advantages arising from publicly provided educa-tion and to analyse their impact on the income distribution in Germany. Using representative micro-data from the SOEP and considering regional and education-specific variation, from a cross-sectional perspective the overall result is the expected levelling effect. When estimating the effects of accumulated educational ...
2007| Joachim R. Frick, Markus M. Grabka, Olaf Groh-Samberg
This paper explores the determinants of individual well-being as measured by self-reported levels of satisfaction with income. Making full use of the panel data nature of the German Socio-Economic Panel, we provide empirical evidence for well-being depending on absolute and on relative levels of income in a dynamic framework. This finding holds after controlling for other influential factors in a multivariate ...
The definition and operationalization of wealth information in population surveys and the corresponding microdata requires a wide range of more or less normative assumptions. However, the decisions made in both the pre- and post-data-collection stage may interfere considerably with the substantive research question. Looking at wealth data from the German SOEP, this paper focuses on the impact of collecting ...
2007| Joachim R. Frick, Markus M. Grabka, Eva M. Sierminska
We test empirically whether people's life satisfaction depends on their relative income position in the neighbourhood, drawing on a unique dataset, the German Socio-economic Panel Study (SOEP) matched with micro-marketing indicators of population characteristics. Relative deprivation theory suggests that individuals are happier the better their relative income position in the neighbourhood is. To test ...
This paper discusses how household panel surveys can be informative about the intergenerational transmission of poverty. We consider issues both of data and of the statistical methods that may be applied to those data. Although the data focus is on panel surveys from developed countries, we also briefly consider data availability in developing countries. We set out a list of survey data requirements ...
This study examines the relationship between individual risk aversion and reservation wages using a novel set of direct measures of individual risk attitudes from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). We find that risk aversion has a significantly negative impact on the level of reservation wages. Moreover, we show that the elasticity of the reservation wage with respect to unemployment benefits ...
Income poverty in Germany has reached its highest level for twenty years. This statistic is often seen as proof of the existence and growth of a 'decoupled underclass'. In other scenarios large sections of society appear to be facing collapse into poverty. If the duration of individual phases of poverty and the different dimensions of life in which need can occur are included in the analysis persistent ...