An unexpected increase in life expectancy has implications for private pensions (annuities). These can be offset by reducing pension payments, cross-subsidization of the pension payments, risk-taking of insurance companies or combining these policies. An empirical study of the German market 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...

This paper discusses how household panels in general - and the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) in particular - an serve as reference data for researchers collecting datasets that do not represent the full universe of the population of interest (e.g., through clinical trials, intervention...

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...

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...

The positive effects of early childhood programs on children's school success have been demonstrated in the literature. However, most studies were completed in the U.S.A., where early childhood programs vary widely, based on differing auspice, regulation, cost, and other factors. In European...

After the introduction in Section 2, we very briefly sketch out current theoretical and empirical developments in the social sciences. In our view, they all point in the same direction: toward the acute and increasing need for multidisciplinary longitudinal data covering a wide range of living...

There are strong two-way links between parent and child happiness (life satisfaction), even for 'children' who have grown up, moved to their own home and partnered themselves. German panel evidence shows that transmission of (un)happiness from parents to children is partly due to transmission of...