On the basis of the German Socio-Economic Panel 2002 and the Dutch Social Position and Use of Provision Survey 2002, we investigate the importance of characteristics related to immigration for the labour market position of Turkish immigrants. We use regression techniques to correct for...

We show that socio-economic status (SES) is a powerful predictor of many facets of a child's personality. The facets of personality we investigate encompass time preferences, risk preferences, and altruism, as well as crystallized and fluid IQ. We measure a family's SES by the mother's and...

Economically active people are either in gainful employment, are unemployed or self-employed. We are interested in the dynamics of the transitions between these states across the business cycle. It is generally perceived that employment or self-employment are absorbing states. However,...

On the basis of three micro datasets, the German Socio-Economic Panel 2002, the Dutch Social Position and Use of Provision Survey 2002 and the Dutch Labour Force Survey 2002, we investigate the labour market position of Turkish immigrants in Germany and the Netherlands. We compare labour market...

The neighbourhoods in which people live reflects their social class and preferences, so studying socio-spatial mobility between neighbourhoods gives insight in the openness of spatial class structures of societies and in the ability of people to leave disadvantaged neighbourhoods. We study the...

This paper explores inequalities in IQ and economic preferences between children from high and low socio-economic status (SES) families. We document that children from high SES families are more intelligent, patient and altruistic, as well as less risk-seeking. To understand the underlying...

This study presents descriptive and causal evidence on the role of social environment for the formation of prosociality. In a first step, we show that socio-economic status (SES) as well as the intensity of mother-child interaction and mothers' prosocial attitudes are systematically related to...

This paper uses both subjective well-being and survey experimental data to analyze how people's positional concerns regarding income and goods vary with age. The subjective well-being approach is mainly based on German panel data for the period 1984-2009 (German Socio-Economic Panel), while the...

How can public pension systems be reformed to ensure fiscal stability in the face of increasing life expectancy? To address this pressing open question in public finance, we estimate a life-cycle model in which the optimal employment, retirement and consumption decisions of forward-looking...