Von 1992 bis 2000 war für Ostdeutschland eine niedrige - und sich über die Jahre kaum verändernde - Einkommensungleichheit zu beobachten. Zugleich waren dort - gemessen an der für Ostdeutschland "regional" definierten Armutsgrenze - weniger Personen als im Westen von Armut betroffen. Für...

Die Partei Die Linke hat in einem Jahr geschafft, was ihre beiden Vorgängerparteien, WASG und PDS, vergeblich versucht haben: Eine in Ost- und Westdeutschland erfolgreiche Kraft politisch links neben der SPD zu etablieren. Auf der Basis der Daten des Sozio-oekonomischen Panels (SOEP) wird...

The level of trust inherent in a society is important for a wide range of microeconomic and macroeconomic outcomes. This paper investigates how individuals' attitudes toward social and institutional trust are shaped by the political regime in which they live. The German reunification is a unique...

We analyze the impact on schooling outcomes of growing up in a family headed by a single mother. Growing up in a non-intact family in Germany is associated with worse outcomes in models that do not control for possible correlations between common unobserved determinants of family structure and...

In most industrialized countries, more people than ever are having to cope with the burden of caring for elderly parents. This paper formulates a model to explain how parental care responsibilities and family structure interact children's mobility characteristics. A key insight we obtain is that...

We provide evidence that living with an unmarried mother during childhood raises smoking propensities for young adults in Germany. -- Smoking ; lone parent ; childhood family structure ; divorce ; unobserved heterogeneity

Recent years have witnessed a rise in right-wing extremism among German youth and young adults. This paper investigates the extent to which the experience of parental unemployment during childhood affects young people's far right-wing attitudes and xenophobia. Estimates from three different...