Was wir aus dem Sparverhalten der Ostdeutschen lernen können : die deutsche Wiedervereinigung als »natürliches Experiment«

Wirtschaftliche Umbrüche, wie sie mit der deutschen Wiedervereinigung verbunden waren, sind in industrialisierten Ländern selten. Sie bieten deshalb aus wissenschaftlicher Sicht eine wertvolle Gelegenheit, um Erkenntnisse über das ökonomische Verhalten von Menschen zu gewinnen. Das Sparverhalten der Ostdeutschen nach der deutschen Wiedervereinigung bestätigt, dass Menschen ihre Ersparnis rational planen

Die ungleiche Entwicklung der Ungleichheit in Deutschland seit der Wiedervereinigung

Im vorliegenden Beitrag werden die langfristigen Trends in der Entwicklung der Ungleichheit in Deutschland analysiert. Er geht aber noch einen Schritt weiter. Wie anhand eines Beispiels gezeigt wird, kann man die Ungleichheit in Deutschland in drei Komponenten zerlegen: die Ungleichheit zwischen Ost- und Westdeutschland, die Ungleichheit innerhalb Ostdeutschlands und die Ungleichheit innerhalb Westdeutschlands. Es wird also ein umfassendes Bild der Entwicklung der Ungleichheit in Deutschland unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Ost-West-Aspekts gezeichnet.

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This paper documents facts about labor supply along the extensive and intensive margin for various demographic subgroups in the US and 18 European countries for the time period 1983 to 2011. To do this, we recur to three different micro data sets, describe in detail how to make the data sets consistent internationally and over time, and compare them to aggregate data from the OECD and the Conference Board. In a recent pre-crisis cross-section, gender differences in hours worked are largest in Western and Southern Europe, driven mostly by the intensive margin in Western Europe and the extensive margin in Southern Europe. Employment rates have consistently been increasing for women in the last three decades, while the picture for hours worked per employed is more diverse. A very strong stylized fact is a negative correlation of employment rates and hours worked per employed for women in the recent cross-section, over time, and for all demographic subgroups. We present some suggestive evidence that this negative correlation is at least partly driven by a lack of part-time jobs in Eastern and Southern Europe, and that increases in flexibility can raise female labor market attachment. Last, we document that male hours worked declined more than female hours worked in the recent Grea

Inequality Trends for Germany in the Last Two Decades: A Tale of Two Countries

In this paper we first document inequality trends in wages, hours worked, earnings, consumption, and wealth for Germany from the last twenty years. We generally find that inequality was relatively stable in West Germany until the German unification (which happened politically in 1990 and in our data in 1991), and then trended upwards for wages and market incomes, especially after about 1998. Disposable income and consumption, on the other hand, display only a modest increase in inequality over the same period. These trends occured against the backdrop of lower trend growth of earnings, incomes and consumption in the 1990s relative to the 1980s. In the second part of the paper we further analyze the differences between East and West Germans in terms of the evolution of levels and inequality of wages, income, and consumption.

Potential migration and subjective well-being in Europe

By examining the preferences over migration destinations of those revealing a desire to permanently leave their country, this paper provides new evidence on the relevance of subjective measures for cross country comparisons. While hard statistics such as GDP per capita and unemployment rates are commonly used to measure a country’s success, this analysis reveals that people’s preferences over alternative migration destinations are better explained by average levels of life satisfaction in the destination country. Aggregated measures of subjective well-being are, therefore, useful for international comparisons as they better reflect what makes some countries more attractive than others

What Makes Entrepreneurs Happy? Determinants of Satisfaction Among Founders

This study empirically investigates factors influencing satisfaction levels of founders of new ventures, using a representative sample of 1,107 Dutch founders. We relate entrepreneurial satisfaction (with income, psychological burden and leisure time) to firm performance, motivation and human capital. Founders with high levels of specific human capital are more satisfied with income than those with high levels of general human capital. Intrinsic motivation and that of combining responsibilities lowers stress and leads to more satisfaction with leisure time. Women are more satisfied with their income than men, even though they have a lower average monthly turnover