Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

The Happiness of Giving: Evidence from the German Socioeconomic Panel That Happier People Are More Generous

This study explores the causal direction between happiness and charitable giving. Through the application of Cohen’s path analysis, the main purpose of the study is to find evidence which of the possible causal directions—the one from giving to happiness or from happiness to giving—is the more dominant one. To that aim the authors use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel 2009/10. In a sample of ...

Life Satisfaction and Endogenous Aspirations

Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (N = 13,145), we investigate the effects of (not) achieving aspirations on subjective well-being. We match individual-level data about life satisfaction aspirations with their subsequent realizations and we jointly estimate two panel-data equations, the first depicting the effects that (not) achieving initial aspirations exerts on the subsequent level ...

Asymmetric affective forecasting errors and their correlation with subjective well-being

Aims Social scientists have postulated that the discrepancy between achievements and expectations affects individuals' subjective well-being. Still, little has been done to qualify and quantify such a psychological effect. Our empirical analysis assesses the consequences of positive and negative affective forecasting errors—the difference between realized and expected subjective well-being—on ...

Overview of Child Well Being in Germany: Policy Towards a Supportive Environment for Children (Zur Lage der Kinder in Deutschland: Politik für Kinder als Zukunftsgestaltung)

Cohort Profile: The Berlin Aging Study II (BASE-II)

Similar to other industrialized countries, Germany’s population is ageing. Whereas some people enjoy good physical and cognitive health into old age, others suffer from a multitude of age-related disorders and impairments which reduce life expectancy and affect quality of life. To identify and characterize the factors associated with ‘healthy’ vs. ‘unhealthy’ ageing, we have launched the Berlin Aging ...

Does Personality Matter? Personality factors as determinants of legislative recruitment and legislators’ policrecruitment and policy preferences

The paper inquires into the impact of personality-factors on the selection and self-selection of recruits for parliamentary mandates by comparing the personality profile of German MPs with a matching sample of the general population (matching in terms of education, gender, age and party preferences). It further determines whether MPs personality has an impact on their policy preferences (expansionist ...

Downward Wage Rigidity in Europe: A New Flexible Parametric Approach and Empirical Results

We suggest a new parametric approach to estimate the extent of downward nominal wage rigidity in ten European countries between 1995 and 2001. The database used throughout is the User Data Base of the European Community Household Panel (ECHP). The proposed approach is based on the generalized hyperbolic distribution, which allows to model wage change distributions characterized by thick tales, skewness ...

What determines wage differentials across the EU?

We analyse determinants of the wage differentials observed between thirteen European countries using the European Community Household Panel (ECHP). The empirical decomposition is based on a proportional hazards model. The approach based on rank invariant estimators is borrowed from the literature on failure time data and has been adapted by Donald et al. (Rev Econ Stud 67:609–633, 2000) to analyse ...

Do Means-tested Benefits Alleviate Poverty?: Evidence on Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom from the Luxembourg Income Study

This article analyses the relationship between means-tested benefits and poverty in Western Europe. Means-tested benefits, as social assistance or housing benefits, are designed as safeguards against poverty for the low-income strata of the population, but our knowledge on their impact is fairly limited. How effective are they in reducing poverty rates? To what degree can they fill the gap that income ...

Is There Income Poverty in Western Europe? Methodological Pitfalls in the Measurement of Poverty in a Comparative Perspective