Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Measuring Individual Risk Attitudes in the Lab: Task or Ask? An Empirical Comparison

This paper compares two prominent empirical measures of individual risk attitudes | the Holt and Laury (2002) lottery-choice task and the multi-item questionnaire advocated by Dohmen, Falk, Huffman, Schupp, Sunde and Wagner (forthcoming) | with respect to (a) their within-subject stability over time (one year) and (b) their correlation with actual risk-taking behaviour in the lab - here the amount ...

Identifying Laffer Bounds: A Sufficient-Statistics Approach with an Application to Germany

We derive a simple sufficient-statistics test for whether a nonlinear tax-transfer system is second-best Pareto efficient. If it is not, then it is beyond the top of the Laffer curve and there exists a tax cut that is self-financing. The test depends on the income distribution, extensive and intensive labor supply elasticities, and income effect parameters. A tax-transfer system is likely to be inefficient ...

Does Commuting Matter to Subjective Well-Being?

How and why commuting contributes to our well-being is of considerable importance for transportation policy and planning. This paper analyses the relation between commuting and subjective well-being by considering several cognitive (e.g., satisfaction with family life, leisure, income, work, health) and affective (e.g., happiness, anger, worry, sadness) components of subjective well-being. Fixed-effects ...

Long road to ruin? Essays examining the effects of commuting on health and well-being

Flexibility and spatial mobility of labour are central characteristics of modern societies which contribute not only to higher overall economic growth but also to a reduction of interregional employment disparities. For these reasons, there is the political will in many countries to expand labour market areas, resulting especially in an overall increase in commuting. The picture of the various, unintended ...

“Is your commute really making you fat?”: The causal effect of commuting distance on height-adjusted weight

This paper explores the causal relationship between commuting distance and height-adjusted weight (BMI) in Germany, using micro-level data for the period 2004 – 2012. In contrast to previous papers, we find no evidence that longer commutes are associated with a higher BMI. The non-existence of a relationship between BMI and commuting distance prevails when physical activity and eating habits are adjusted ...

Commuting and Sickness Absence

We investigate the causal effect of commuting on sickness absence from work using German panel data. To address reverse causation, we use changes in commuting distance for employees who stay with the same employer and who have the same residence during the period of observation. In contrast to previous papers, we do not observe that commuting distances are associated with higher sickness absence, in ...

Can Compensating Wage Differentials Explain Male-Female Wage Differences in the FRG?

Use of health services according to income before and after elimination of copayment in Germany and restriction of universal health coverage in Spain

In Germany copayment for medical consultation was eliminated in 2013, and in Spain universal health coverage was partly restricted in 2012. This study shows the relationship between income and the use of health services before and after these measures in each country.

Who Has It and Who Gets It?: The Role of Gender, Resources, and Transitions for Power within Couples

Social inequality within intimate relationships is a central dimension of social inequalities in the wider society and is highly related to power imbalances. In couples, partners who have power are able to manipulate the distribution of gains and costs in the relationship. Furthermore, power manifests itself within partners interaction and, thus, is a dynamic process. Therefore, the power allocation ...

When My Money Becomes Our Money: Changes in Couples’ Money Management

Conservative welfare state policies as in Germany often presume that money is a common resource within couples and, therefore, pooled. Research, however, indicates that money is increasingly managed separately or partly separately. This trend is either explained by the diversification of forms of relationships or interpreted as a general decline of the joint pooling of money. Contributing to this debate, ...