We provide a concise introduction to a household-panel data infrastructure that provides the international research community with longitudinal data of private households in Germany since 1984: the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). We demonstrate the comparative strength of the SOEP data in...

This paper is the first to analyze the impact of family background on permanent earnings based on sibling correlations in Germany and to provide a cross-country comparison of Germany, Denmark, and USA. The main findings are that family and community background has a stronger influence on...

For many years, securing equal life opportunities has been a normative goal shared by all democratic societies in the western world. Although, in principle, all citizens enjoy the same rights, in reality, individual life opportunities still vary according to family background which, in turn,...

Die Sicherstellung von gleichen Lebenschancen ist ein Ziel, das seit vielen Jahren alle westlich geprägten demokratisch verfassten Gesellschaften teilen. Obwohl alle Bürger formal über gleiche Rechte verfügen, sind auch in Deutschland die Chancen für individuelle Lebensverläufe je nach...

Grandparents act as the third biggest care giver besides day care and parental care for children below the age of 6 in most OECD countries. Despite its relevance, the effects of child care provided by grandparents on child and parental outcomes have received little attention in the literature....

This paper aims to collaborate with the discussion about the factors that try to explain the economic behavior in Latin America countries, considering the importance of some attributes related to social capital (ie interpersonal trust, which leads to association and civic commitment, performing...

Robots, that is any sort of machinery from computers to artificial intelligence programs that provides a good substitute for work currently performed by humans, can increasingly replace workers, even highly skilled professionals, and thus reduce opportunities for good jobs and pay. But, with...

Wage inequality in Portugal has increased over the last thirty years, with two distinct periods. The period from 1984 to the mid-90s witnessed strong increases in both upper- and lower-tail inequality. A shortage of skills combined with skill-biased technological changes were at the core of this...

Distributive value judgments based on the 'origins' of economic inequalities (e.g. circumstances and responsible choices) are increasingly evoked to argue that 'the worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal'. However, one may reasonably agree that distributive value...