The paper is the first productivity analysis of a large number of German electricity distributors to date. In it, we address both traditional issues of electricity sector benchmarking, such as the role of scale effects and optimal utility size, as well as new evidence specific to the situation...

In this paper, the concept of Income Satisfaction Inequality is operationalized on the basis of individual responses to an Income Satisfaction question posed in the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP). Income satisfaction is the subjective analogue of the objective income concept and includes...

We provide an analytical framework within which changes in income inequality over time are related to the pattern of income growth across the income range, and the reshuffling of individuals in the income pecking order. We use it to explain how it was possible both for 'the poor' to have fared...

Subjective Well-Being has increasingly been studied by several economists. This paper fits in that literature but takes into account that there are different aspects of life such as health, financial situation, and job. We call them domains. In this paper, we consider Subjective Well-Being as a...

Statistische Daten sind im allgemeinen - gemessen an idealtypischen Erhebungsbedingungen - nicht fehlerfrei, insbesondere können sie durch die Art, wie sie erhoben werden, beeinflusst werden ("Erhebungsartefakte"). Interviewereffekte spielen in diesem Zusammenhang in der Literatur eine...

This paper presents two new tools for the identification of faking interviewers in surveys. One method is based on Benford?s Law, and the other exploits the empirical observation that fakers most often produce answers with less variability than could be expected from the whole survey. We focus...