After the introduction in Section 2, we very briefly sketch out current theoretical and empirical developments in the social sciences. In our view, they all point in the same direction: toward the acute and increasing need for multidisciplinary longitudinal data covering a wide range of living...

There is general agreement about the importance of integrating non-monetary income components into cash-based income measures in order to improve the comparability of distribution results across time and space. Based on micro-data from the first round of EU-SILC (EU Statistics on Income and...

The definition and operationalization of wealth information in population surveys and the corresponding microdata requires a wide range of more or less normative assumptions. However, the decisions made in both the pre- and post-data-collection stage may interfere considerably with the...

This paper explores the determinants of individual well-being as measured by self-reported levels of satisfaction with income. Making full use of the panel data nature of the German Socio-Economic Panel, we provide empirical evidence for well-being depending on absolute and on relative levels of...

Using German panel data from 1984 to 2007, we analyze the impact of labor division between husband and wife on the risk of divorce. Gary Becker's theory of marriage predicts that specialization in domestic and market work, respectively, reduces the risk of separation. Traditionally, the...

Using representative and consistent microdata from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) from 1985-2007, we illustrate that capital income (CI = return on financial investments) and imputed rent (IR = return on investments in owner-occupied housing) have become increasingly important...

In this study we use import penetration as a proxy for foreign competition in order to empirically analyze (1) the impact of foreign competition on managerial compensation, (2) differences in the impact between Germany and the U.S. and (3) whether the impact of import penetration is driven by...

Are immigrants on welfare because they are more likely to be eligible or because they are more likely to claim benefits for which they are eligible? The answer is politically important, but because most current research on immigration and welfare is based on data from the U.S., the answer is...

This paper deals with the economic performance of various population groups in Germany giving special attention to ethnic origin of immigrants as compared to the native born German population. In addition, winners and losers of the re-distribution process, induced by the tax and social security...