German family policy underwent a reform in 2007, when the new instrument of "Elterngeld" replaced the previous "Erziehungsgeld". The transfer programs differ in various dimensions. We study the effects on the labor supply of young mothers, by comparing behavior before and after the reform. We...

The article analyzes the question of whether career politicians differ systematically from the general population in terms of their attitudes toward risk. A written survey of members of the 17th German Bundestag in late 2011 identified their risk attitudes, and the survey data was set in...

In this paper we discuss the rationale for tracing non-original sample members (Non-OSMs) in household panel studies, and in particular in SOEP, and the implications for weighting. We present results on the incidence, survival rates, and thus the relevance of Non-OSMs in the SOEP

We study the returns to apprenticeship and vocational training for three early labor market outcomes all measured at age 25 for East and West German youths: non-employment (i.e., unemployment or out of the labor force), permanent fulltime employment, and wages. We find strong positive effects of...

This study examines the phenomenon of nonresponse in the first wave of a refresher sample (subsample H) of the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP). Our first step is to link additional (commercial) microgeographic data on the immediate neighborhoods of the households visited by...

Throughout adulthood and old age, levels of well-being appear to remain relatively stable. However, evidence is emerging that late in life well-being declines considerably. Using long-term longitudinal data of deceased participants in national samples from Germany, the UK, and the US, we examine...

This paper demonstrates the spatial evaluation of survey data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) study using geo-coordinates and spatially relevant indicators from remote sensing data. By geocoding the addresses of survey households with block-level geographic precision (while...

The main aim of the present paper is to historically reappraise the development of the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) in the 1990s after the first six waves had been collected. This development was closely connected to the opening of the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe and the fall of...

Using a unique dataset we study both the actual and self-perceived relationship between subjective well-being and income comparisons against a wide range of potential comparison groups, enabling us to investigate a broader range of questions than in previous studies. In questions inserted into a...

Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Survey (SOEP), this paper assesses the relationship between life satisfaction and religious practice. The main new result here is longitudinal. It is shown that individuals who become more religious over time record long term gains in life...