The positive association between moderate alcohol consumption and wages is well documented in the economic literature. Positive health effects as well as networking mechanisms serve as explanations for the "alcohol-income puzzle." Using individual-based microdata from the GSOEP for 2006, we...

This paper empirically investigates the effects of changes in the interest rate as well as transitory income uncertainty on households' consumption-savings decision. Applying a structural demand model to German survey data, we estimate the uncompensated interest rate elasticity for savings, in...

This paper uncovers ongoing trends in idiosyncratic earnings volatility across generations by decomposing residual earnings auto-covariances into a permanent and a transitory component. We employ data on complete earnings life cycles forprime age men born 1935 through 1974 that covers earnings...

This paper proposes a method to evaluate health losses or gains by looking at the impact on well-being of a change in health status. The paper presents estimates of the equivalent income change that would be necessary to change general satisfaction with life to the same extent as a change in...

Why do people work unpaid overtime? We show that remarkable long-term labor earnings gains are associated with unpaid overtime in West Germany. A descriptive analysis suggests that over a 10-year period workers with unpaid overtime experience on average at least a 10 percentage points higher...

After the collapse in early transition years, saving rates in Eastern European EU-accession countries have recovered strongly. Is private saving in these countries now driven by the same forces as in the EU? A GMM estimator is applied to analyze the determinants of private saving in both country...

We document systematic and significant time variation in US lifecycle non-durable consumption profiles. Consumption profiles have consistently become flatter: differences in consumption across generations have decreased. Pooling data across different periods to identify lifecycle profiles masks...

We decompose permanent earnings risk into contributions from hours and wage shocks. To distinguish between hours shocks, modeled as innovations to the marginal disutility of work, and labor supply reactions to wage shocks we formulate a life-cycle model of consumption and labor supply. Both...