Existing literature on inequality of opportunity (IOp) has failed to address the question as to how the circumstances and choices of spouses in a couple should be treated. By omitting information relevant to the spouse in IOp estimations, the implicit assumption was full responsibility for the...

The case of German reunification has been subject to extensive research on earnings inequality and labor market integration. however, little is known about the development of equality of opportunity (EOp) in East and West Germany after 1990.Using German micro data, we empirically analyze how...

This paper compiles a multidimensional poverty index for Germany. Drawing on the capability approach as conceptual framework, I apply the Alkire-Foster method using German panel data. I suggest new operationalizations for two dimensions: social participation and practical reason, the latter...

Empirical analyses of economic inequality, poverty, and mobility in Germany are, to an increas-ing extent, using microdata from the German Federal Statistical Office's contribution to the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) as well as data from the German...

Nach der Auflösung einer Partnerschaft bestehen die finanziellen Verflechtungen der ehemaligen Partner meist noch weiter. Dies gilt umso mehr, wenn aus der Partnerschaft Kinder hervor gegangen sind. Dem Kindesunterhalt kommt eine besondere Rolle zu. Trotz seiner sozial- und familienpolitischen...

We use life satisfaction and Body Mass Index (BMI) information from three waves of the SOEP to test for social interactions in BMI between spouses. Social interactions require that the cross-partial effect of partner's weight and own weight in the utility function be positive. Using life...

This paper shows that within-country happiness inequality has fallen in the majority of countries that have experienced positive income growth over the last forty years, in particular in developed countries. This new stylized fact comes as an addition to the Easterlin paradox, which states that...

Recently, building on the highly polarizing Stiglitz report, a growing literature suggests that statistical offices and applied researchers explore other aspects of human welfare apart from material well-being, such as job security, crime, health, environmental factors and subjective...

While rising unemployment generally reduces people's happiness, researchers argue that there is a compensating social-norm effect for the unemployed individual, who might suffer less when it is more common to be unemployed. This empirical study, however, rejects this thesis for German panel data...

Major nuclear accidents as recently in Fukushima set nuclear power plant security at the top of the public agenda. Using data of the German Socio-Economic Panel we analyze the effects of the Fukushima accident and a subsequent government decision on nuclear power phase-out on several measures of...