https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/29188 2026-04-29T20:33:26Z 2026-04-29T20:33:26Z Steiner, Viktor Zhu, Junyi https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/29452 2021-02-04T02:07:32Z 2021-01-01T00:00:00Z

A Joint Top Income and Wealth Distribution Steiner, Viktor; Zhu, Junyi Top distributions of income and wealth are still incompletely measured in many national statistics, particularly when using survey data. This paper develops the technique of incorporating the joint distributional relationship to enhance the estimation of these two top distributions by using the best data available for Germany. We leverage the bivariate copula to extrapolate both income and wealth distributions from German PHF (Panel on Household Finance) data under the incidental truncation model. The copula modelling grants the separability in choosing the estimation domain as well as the parametric specification between the marginal distribution and dependence structure. One distinct feature of our paper is to complement the model fit with external validation. The copula estimate can help us to perform out-of-sample prediction on the very top of the tail distribution from one margin conditional on the characteristics of the other. The validation exercises show that our copula-based approach can approximate much closer to the top tax data and wealth “rich list” than those unconditional marginal extrapolations. The data and effectiveness of our copula-based approach also verify our presumption of incidental truncation and differential detectability in the top lists.

2021-01-01T00:00:00Z Piper, Alan https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/29475 2021-02-04T02:07:41Z 2021-01-01T00:00:00Z

An economic analysis of the empty nest syndrome Piper, Alan This study is an empirical investigation of the empty nest syndrome, commonly understood as a situation where there are feelings of loss or loneliness for mothers and/or fathers following the departure of the last child from the family home. This investigation makes use of rich, longitudinal, nationally representative German data to assess whether there is evidence for such a syndrome. Furthermore, the analysis considers the role of two key economic variables: consumption and leisure via the standard economic concept of utility maximisation. The analysis highlights a conflict between what economic theory predicts - more disposable income and a gain of leisure time - and the psychological (and cultural) notion of the lonely, sad empty nester. This conflict is an empirical question and here it is resolved via an assessment of the change in life satisfaction that is reported when parents become empty nesters. Importantly, this investigation also tracks what the last child leaving the household goes on to do: The found reduced life satisfaction seems to be wholly moderated if the last child leaves the nest for the purposes of education, but not if for purposes of employment.

2021-01-01T00:00:00Z Prömel, Christopher https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/32585 2022-06-10T14:41:18Z 2021-01-01T00:00:00Z

Belonging or estrangement Prömel, Christopher This study deals with the impact of the 2015 European Refugee Crisis on the ethnic identity of resident migrants in Germany. To derive plausibly causal estimates, I exploit the quasi-experimental setting in Germany, by which refugees are allocated to different counties by state authorities without being able to choose their locations themselves. This study finds that higher shares of refugees in a county increased migrants’ attachment to their home countries, while not affecting their perceived belonging to Germany. Further analyses uncover strong heterogeneities with respect to country of origin and immigrant characteristics and suggest that the observed effects may be primarily driven by experiences of discrimination and the consumption of foreign media. Lastly, I find that changes in ethnic identity coincide with the political polarization of migrants. These results have various policy implications in terms of the dispersal of asylum seekers, the modes of communication with different migrant groups and the importance of antidiscrimination measures.

2021-01-01T00:00:00Z Bester, Helmut https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/31262 2021-07-13T01:06:15Z 2021-01-01T00:00:00Z

Fairness and Competition in a Bilateral Matching Market Bester, Helmut This paper analyzes fairness and bargaining in a dynamic bilateral matching market. Traders from both sides of the market are pairwise matched to share the gains from trade. The bargaining outcome depends on the traders’ fairness attitudes. In equilibrium fairness matters because of market frictions. But, when these frictions become negligible, the equilibrium approaches theWalrasian competitive equilibrium, independently of the traders’ inequity aversion. Fairness may yield a Pareto improvement; but also the contrary is possible. Overall, the market implications of fairness are very different from its effects in isolated bilateral bargaining.

2021-01-01T00:00:00Z