Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Personality Traits and the Likelihood of Self-Employment: A Journey into the Crafts’ Way of Doing Business

Given the renewed scholarly interest in the crafts, this paper explores the nuances of crafts entrepreneurship through a personality-based approach. Our findings validate prior research on the general influence of broad and narrow personality traits on self-employment. However, our analysis also suggests that certain effects differ between crafts and non-crafts, most notably the role of the Big Five ...

Non-Formal Education and Life Satisfaction

Terrorism and Voting: The Rise of Right-Wing Populism in Germany

Can right-wing terrorism increase support for far-right populist parties, and if so, why? Exploiting quasi-random variation between successful and failed attacks across German municipalities, we find that successful attacks lead to significant increases in the vote share for the right-wing, populist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party. Our results are predominantly observable in state (Bundesland) ...

Short-time Work and Unemployment: Long-term Effects on Workers’ Labor-market Outcomes, Time Use and Life Satisfaction

Many countries use job-retention schemes, such as short-time work (STW), to stabilize the labor market during economic downturns. While these schemes might prevent unemployment (UE) and its adverse effects on workers, STW could also deter workers from moving to more productive firms, thereby negatively affecting their labor market outcomes in the long run. We analyze the long-term effects of STW and ...

Demanding financial self-sufficiency after divorce: understanding the consequences of the 2008 Alimony Reform

In this paper, we examine whether and to what extent the 2008 Alimony Reform in Germany had an impact on alimony, its likelihood of payment, and cooperation between former spouses. In 2008, financial self-responsibility was imposed on divorcees by limiting post-marital alimony. By estimating panel event models and exploiting the German Tax Payer Panel, we show a significant decline in the likelihood ...

Changes in mode use after residential relocation: Attitudes and the built environment

After changes in the spatial environment induced by residential relocations, mode choice is prone to reconsideration. This study analyzes a panel dataset of 661 movers in Germany who were questioned before and after a move. We aim to determine the relationships between changes in the built environment, in travel attitudes, and in mode choice, accounting for possibly bi-directional relationships. Structural ...

Managing migration: Female mayors and the intake of refugees

This paper studies whether political leaders’ gender matters for crisis management. I examine female mayors in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia during the intake of Ukrainian refugees in 2022/23. I use granular data on fulfillment of the municipal refugee allocation quota and 2020 municipal election data. I use a two-way fixed effects specification to compare quota fulfillment of female and ...

Random Placement but Real Bias

Many studies exploit the random placement of individuals into groups such as schools or regions to estimate the effects of group-level variables on these individuals. Assuming a simple data generating process, we show that the typical estimate contains three components: the causal effect of interest, ”multiple-treatment bias” (MTB), and ”mobility bias” (MB). The extent of these biases depends on the ...

Telework and establishment location: employee influence and regional heterogeneity

Telework could alter the spatial distributions of economic and social activities as work moves away from central places. Decisions regarding telework from home are made in establishments. Employee influence in establishments, as well as regional structures at the establishment location may interact to influence such decisions. Using the SOEP-LEE2 data for Germany findings show that decisions by establishments ...

Cross-cultural measurement invariance of the BFI-15p in university students from Argentina, Spain, and Peru

The Big Five Inventory–15p (BFI-15p) is a relatively new 15-item version developed for Hispanic populations; however, evidence of its cross-cultural equivalence is lacking. This study examined the clarity of item phrasing (Study 1) and measurement invariance (Study 2) in university students from Argentina, Spain, and Peru. Two studies were conducted: one to assess perceived item clarity (n = 70) and ...