Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

International Outsourcing and Wage Rigidity: A Formal Approach and First Empirical Evidence

International Outsourcing effects on labor markets are mostly analyzed within flexible wage settings. Using a modern duality approach, this paper formally investigates differences occurring in industries with low skilled wage rigidity and, for the first time in literature, presents empirical evidence supporting the theoretical findings. Using a logit model to analyze microeconomic German panel data, ...

Labor Market Effects of International Outsourcing: How Measurement Matters

Information Asymmetry, Education Signals and the Case of Ethnic and Native Germans

This paper analyses the effects of education signals for Ethnic Germans and Germans without a migration background (“Native Germans”). We base our analysis on a sorting model with productivity enhancing effects of education. We compare whether the signalling value differs between the migrants and non-migrants in the German labour market. Starting from the theoretical result that only a separating equilibrium ...

The Sorting Value of Education: Is it Different for Ethnic and Native Germans?

An Unconditional Basic Income in the Family Context – Labor Supply and Distributional Effects

In this paper we estimate the effects of an unconditional basic income on labor supply and income distribution with a special focus on the incentives to work in the family context. An unconditional basic income guarantees every citizen a minimum income without any means-testing. We simulate a proposed basic income reform with a detailed microsimulation model, estimate labor supply reactions with a ...

The Health Gradient and Early Retirement: Evidence from the German Socio-economic Panel

The Social Costs of Health-related Early Retirement in Gernany: Evidence from the German Socio-economic Panel

This study investigates the role of stratification of health and income in the social cost of health-related early retirement, as evidenced in the German Socio-economic Panel (GSOEP). We interpret early retirement as a mechanism to limit work-related declines in health that allows poorer and less healthy workers to maximize the total discounted value of annuities received from Germany’s pay-as-you-go ...

Endangering of Businesses by the German Inheritance Tax? – An Empirical Analysis

This contribution addresses the substantial tax privilege for businesses introduced by the German Inheritance Tax Act 2009. Advocates of the vast or even entire tax exemption for businesses stress the potential damage of the inheritance tax on businesses, as those often lack liquidity to meet tax liability. This submission tackles this issue empirically based on data of the German Inheritance Tax Statistics ...

Income Mobility in the United States and Germany: A Comparison of Two Classes of Mobilty Measures using the GSOEP, PSID, and CPS

The United States is often considered to be more free-wheeling and mobile than Germany; however, previous cross-national studies of income mobility find the opposite is true. This paper investigates these surprising results and finds that they are confirmed when income mobility is measured by changes in the positions of individuals in the income distribution — members of former West German households ...

Neighbourhood effects in cross-Atlantic perspective: A longitudinal analysis of impacts on intergenerational mobility in the USA and Germany

Research in the USA provides evidence that neighbourhood conditions affect intergenerational mobility. However, what remains unclear is the extent to which the US context is unique in producing this influence. To examine this question, the present study directly compares neighbourhood effects on intergenerational mobility in the USA versus those in Germany – a country whose housing market and social ...