To the best of our knowledge, most of the few methodological studies which analyze the impact of faked interviews on survey results are based on ?artificial fakes? generated by project students in a ?laboratory environment?. In contrast, panel data provide a unique opportunity to identify data...

A particular shortcoming of panel surveys is potential bias arising from selective attrition. Based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) we analyze potential artifacts (level, structure, inequality of income) by comparing results from two independently drawn panel...

Typically, laboratory experiments suffer from homogeneous subject pools and self-selection biases. The usefulness of survey data is limited by measurement error and by the questionability of their behavioral relevance. Here we present a method integrating interactive experiments and...

Are immigrants on welfare because they are more likely to be eligible or because they are more likely to claim benefits for which they are eligible? The answer is politically important, but because most current research on immigration and welfare is based on data from the U.S., the answer is...

Overall, children in Germany live in households with below average incomes; therefore social policies that address the vulnerable position of Germany?s children are necessary. These policies should cover targeted financial transfers as well as improvements in day care provision for children....

Using panel data for West Germany and Great Britain, we show that there are striking differences in overtime work and overtime compensation in the two countries in the 1990s. Our estimates reveal that the observed overtime patterns affect both the evolution of the monthly labour earnings...

Upon arrival in the host country, immigrants undergo a fundamental identity crisis. Their ethnic identity being questioned, they can be classified into four states assimilation, integration, separation and marginalization. This is suggested by the ethnosizer, a newly established measure to...

This paper is based on recently collected and rich survey data of a representative sample of entrants into unemployment in Germany. Our data include a large number of migration variables, allowing us to adapt a recently developed concept of ethnic identity: the ethnosizer. To shed further light...

Using data from the long-running German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) 1984-2008, this paper analyses the effects of individual preferences and choices on subjective well-being (SWB). It is shown that preferences and choices relating to life goals/values, partner's personality, hours of work,...

This chapter investigates the integration processes of immigrants in Germany by comparing certain immigrant groups to natives differentiating by gender and immigrant generation. Indicators which are supposed to capture cultural integration of immigrants are differences in marital behavior as...