In questions inserted into the 2008 module of the German-Socio Economic Panel we ask subjects to report their income relative to different reference groups, such as fellow employees, other people in their profession, same age and same gender groups, friends, and neighbours. In addition subjects...

Die Bedeutung von nicht traditionellen Familienformen, d. h. von Familien, in denen nicht beide leibliche Eltern ihre Kinder gemeinsam großziehen, wird immer wieder kontrovers diskutiert. In der Öffentlichkeit wird häufi g vermutet, dass Kindern Nachteile erwachsen, wenn sie nicht in...

To the best of our knowledge, most of the few methodological studies which analyze the impact of faked interviews on survey results are based on ?artificial fakes? generated by project students in a ?laboratory environment?. In contrast, panel data provide a unique opportunity to identify data...

A particular shortcoming of panel surveys is potential bias arising from selective attrition. Based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) we analyze potential artifacts (level, structure, inequality of income) by comparing results from two independently drawn panel...