Though the shared investment hypothesis of human capital theory, i.e. that employers and employees share the costs of and the return on investment in firm-specific human capital, is widely accepted, we know little about the empirical evidence. The paper shows that in German data (1984-1991)...

The paper provides information on sample sizes and panel attrition in the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) for the years 1984-1999. Furthermore, results of the sequential estimation of non-response probabilities for the different subsamples of the GSOEP are described in detail.

This paper presents detailed evidence about who compares to whom in terms of relative income. We rely on representative survey data on the importance of income comparisons vis-á-vis seven reference groups, allowing us to exploit within-subject heterogeneity. We explore the prevalence and...