In international comparison, German university graduates are elder on average when they enter the labor market. Apart from the longer duration time of study at university, one fundamental reason is the long secondary schooling time. Therefore, almost all of the German federal states have...

Measuring unobserved individual ability is a core challenge of the analysis of questions related to human capital development. For that purpose, concepts from psychology, predominantly measures of IQ have become established means in empirical economics. However, many issues of individual di...

During the last two decades many countries have reformed their welfare systems with the aim of shifting labor market policies from passive benefit receipt towards increased job search and work requirements. As part of this shift benefit sanctions are increasingly being used in the activation...

This study analyzes the effects of right-wing extremism on the well-being of immigrants based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) for the years 1984 to 2006 merged with state-level information on election outcomes. The results show that the life satisfaction of immigrants is...

Immigrants consist of foreigners and citizens with migration background. We analyze the wage gap between natives and these two groups in Germany. The estimates show a substantial gap for both groups with respect to natives. Discarding immigrants who completed education abroad reduces much of the...

Language proficiency may not only affect the earnings of the individual, but the probability to participate in the labor market or becoming employed as well. It may also affect selection of people into economic sector and occupation. In this paper, the effects of language proficiency on earnings...

Despite the interdependence between cognitive and noncognitive skills, empirical studies have shown a longer period of acquisition in life-time for the latter besides relevance for educational and labor market success. Analyzing returns of investments during different periods of life is...

Less than half of the people with migration background living in Germany possess foreign citizenship. Hence, using citizenship to analyze economic issues of immigration may be problematic for two reasons. On the one hand, a quite substantial share of persons with migration background is...

Die fortwährende gesellschaftliche Debatte über die angeblich wachsende »Kluft zwischen Arm und Reich« ist höchst aktuell und durch das Buch Pikettys »Das Kapital im 21. Jahrhundert« befeuert worden. Verteilungsfragen – wer bekommt wovon und wieviel und warum – wurden in der...