This paper concentrates on official statistics on household income, poverty, and wealth. It characterizes the main research questions in this field, and it presents an overview of the available statistics and Scientific Use Files produced by the four Research Data Centers (RDC) in Germany. (RDC...

Experimental economics is an established method of generating controlled and replicable empirical knowledge. It is complementary to other empirical methods in the social sciences. The research infrastructure for laboratory experiments is very good in Europe and also in Germany. One useful...

Metadata, or data about data, play a crucial rule in social sciences to ensure that high quality documentation and community knowledge are properly captured and surround the data across its entire life cycle, from the early stages of production to secondary analysis by researchers or use by...

What are social competencies, how can they be measured, and do they remain stable over time. This contribution examines the difficulties in conceptualising and measuring social competencies at different developmental stages and in a changing social context. Existing measures and available data...

Falling response rates and the advancement of technology have shaped the discussion in survey methodology in the last few years. Both led to a notable change in data collection efforts. Survey organizations try to create adaptive recruitment and survey designs and increased the collection of...

Given the importance of the early stage of a child`s life and taking into account that there various initiatives underway to improve preschool programs in German, it is remarkable that there are only a few microdatasets covering the field of preschool education in Germany - even less if the...

There is a huge demand for high-quality longitudinal educational research in Germany. In particular, there is a clear need for both analytical and methodological progress in order to understand educational pathways through the life course and how they lead to different outcomes. This paper...

Experience Sampling refers to the repeated sampling of momentary experiences in the individual's natural environment. Methodological advantages include the minimization of retrospective response biases and the maximization of the validity of the assessment. Conceptual benefits include the...

Commercial transaction surveys and test market data are important sources for the analysis of consumer behaviour in various markets. The advantage of these surveys is that they do not only rely on "weak" data of consumers but also on "measured" data (eg. sales information, marketing information...

The paper briefly surveys available data sources and discusses future developments relevant for empirical public finance in Germany. It starts from the notion that public finance deals with decisions of various agents, not only governments, but also private households and firms. Therefore,...