This paper investigates the transferability of human capital across countries and the contribution of imperfect human capital portability to the explanation of the immigrant-native wage gap. Using data for West Germany, our results reveal that, overall, education and in particular labor market...

We consider the link between poverty and subjective well-being, and focus in particular on the role of time. We use panel data on 49,000 individuals living in Germany from 1992 to 2012 to uncover three empirical relationships. First, life satisfaction falls with both the incidence and intensity...

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...

This paper analyzes whether immigrant families facing credit constraints adopt a family investment strategy wherein, upon arrival, an immigrant spouse invests in host country-specific human capital while the other partner works to finance the family's current consumption. Using data for West...

We here explore the link between individual concerns about crime and the distribution of income in Germany. We make use of 1995-2017 microdata from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) to show that both individual polarization and relative deprivation have statistically-significant effects on...