How important is cultural background for the level of intergenerational mobility?

Using results on brother correlations of different groups of second generation immigrants based on administrative data from Denmark, this note analyzes the role of cultural background in the determination of the level of intergenerational mobility. The estimated correlations indicate that cultural background is not an important factor for the level of intergenerational mobility. --Intergenerational mobility,Sibling correlations

How Important Is the Family?: Evidence from Sibling Correlations in Permanent Earnings in the US, Germany and Denmark

This paper is the first to analyze intergenerational economic mobility based on sibling correlations in permanent earnings in Germany and to provide a cross-country comparison of Germany, Denmark, and the US. The main findings are as follows: the importance of family and community background in Germany is higher than in Denmark and comparable to that in the US. This holds true for brothers and sisters. In Denmark 20 percent of the inequality in permanent earnings can be attributed to family and community factors shared by brothers while the corresponding estimates are 43 percent in Germany and 45 percent in the US. For sisters the estimates are 19 percent for Denmark, 39 percent for Germany and 29 percent for the US. This ranking is shown to be robust against alternative approaches.Sibling correlations, intergenerational mobility, inequality, REML

Wage Mobility in East and West Germany

This article studies the long run patterns and explanations of wage mobility as a characteristic of regional labor markets. Using German administrative data we describe wage mobility since 1975 in West and since 1992 in East Germany. Wage mobility declined substantially in East Germany in the 1990s and moderately in East and West Germany since the late 1990s. Therefore, wage mobility does not balance recent increases in cross-sectional wage inequality. We apply RIF (recentered influence function) regression based decompositions to measure the role of potential explanatory factors behind these mobility changes. Increasing job stability is an important factor associated with the East German mobility decline.wage mobility, earnings mobility, income mobility, Germany, East Germany, inequality, transition matrix, Shorrocks index, administrative data

How Important Is the Family? Evidence from Sibling Correlations in Permanent Earnings in the USA, Germany, and Denmark

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 permanent earnings in Germany than in Denmark, and a comparable influence is found in USA. This holds true for both male and female siblings. A deeper analysis of Germany shows that family background also plays an important role in explaining variations in family income, wages, education, and risk attitudes.The final publication is available at www.springerlink.com: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00148-013-0468-

Competition and Cooperation in Divisible Good Auctions: An Experimental Examination

An experimental approach is used to examine the performance of three different multi-unit auction designs: discriminatory, uniform-price with fixed supply, and uniform-price with endogenous supply. We find that the strategies of the individual bidders and the aggregate demand curves are inconsistent with theoretically identified equilibrium strategies. The discriminatory auction is found to be more susceptible to collusion than are the uniform-price auctions, and so contrary to theoretical predictions and previous experimental results the discriminatory auction provides the lowest average revenue. Consistent with theoretical predictions, bidder demands are more elastic with reducible supply or discriminatory pricing than in the uniform-price auction with fixed supply. Despite a lack of a priori differences across bidders, the discriminatory auction results in significantly more symmetric allocations.

How important is the family? Evidence from sibling correlations in permanent earnings in the US, Germany and Denmark

This paper is the first to analyze intergenerational economic mobility based on sibling correlations in permanent earnings in Germany and to provide a cross-country comparison of Germany, Denmark, and the US. The main findings are as follows: the importance of family and community background in Germany is higher than in Denmark and comparable to that in the US. This holds true for brothers and sisters. In Denmark 20 percent of the inequality in permanent earnings can be attributed to family and community factors shared by brothers while the corresponding estimates are 43 percent in Germany and 45 percent in the US. For sisters the estimates are 19 percent for Denmark, 39 percent for Germany and 29 percent for the US. This ranking is shown to be robust against alternative approaches

Umfang und Folgen der Nichtinanspruchnahme von Urlaub in Deutschland

Rund 37 Prozent der abhängig Vollzeitbeschäftigten haben den ihnen zustehenden Urlaub im letzten Jahr nicht voll in Anspruch genommen. Die Zahl der tatsächlich genommenen Urlaubstage lag für jeden Arbeitnehmer im Durchschnitt um drei Tage unter seinem eigentlichen Urlaubsanspruch. Demnach werden etwa zwölf Prozent des Gesamtanspruchsvolumens an Urlaub nicht genutzt. Dies belegen die vom DIW Berlin zusammen mit TNS Infratest Sozialforschung erhobenen Daten des Sozio-oekonomischen Panels (SOEP). Es zeigt sich, dass jüngere Arbeitnehmer ihren Urlaub weniger ausschöpfen als ältere. Auch schöpfen vor allem Arbeitnehmer in kleineren Betrieben und Personen mit kurzer Betriebszugehörigkeit ihren Urlaub nicht voll aus. Die Unterausschöpfung von Urlaub geht mit kurzfristigen Einkommenszuwächsen einher. Es zeigen sich aber auch Einschränkungen der Lebensqualität

Low level of equal opportunities in Germany: Family background shapes individual economic success

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, shapes the prevailing pattern of social inequality. This is not a specifically German phenomenon. Based on a new methodology, the present findings demonstrate that, in Germany, family background has a significant impact on individual earnings, family income, hourly wages, and also educational success: 40 percent of individual earnings inequality can be explained by family background. In the case of educational achievement, this figure even exceeds 50 percent. By international standards, this places equality of opportunity in Germany at a similarly low level as in the US and significantly lower than in Denmark

Competition and Cooperation in Divisible Good Auctions: An Experimental Examination

An experimental approach is used to examine the performance of three different multi-unit auction designs: discriminatory, uniform-price with fixed supply, and uniform-price with endogenous supply. We find that the strategies of the individual bidders and the aggregate demand curves are inconsistent with theoretically identified equilibrium strategies. The discriminatory auction is found to be more susceptible to collusion than are the uniform-price auctions, and so contrary to theoretical predictions and previous experimental results, the discriminatory auction provides the lowest average revenue. Consistent with theoretical predictions, bidder demands are more elastic with reducible supply or discriminatory pricing than in the uniform-price auction with fixed supply. Despite a lack of a priori differences across bidders, the discriminatory auction results in significantly more symmetric allocations.Divisible good, Auctions, Experimental economics

How important is cultural background for the level of intergenerational mobility?

Using results on brother correlations of different groups of second generation immigrants based on administrative data from Denmark, this note analyzes the role of cultural background in the determination of the level of intergenerational mobility. The estimated correlations indicate that cultural background is not an important factor for the level of intergenerational mobility