Research

My research interests lie in applied microeconomics, particularly labour and family economics, migration, housing, and regional and urban economics. My current papers study family transitions in Germany using original historical regional data and the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).

Job Market Paper

German Internal Migration: A Marriage Market Perspective

This paper examines whether young, female-skewed East–West migration after German reunification affected divorce rates in receiving West German districts. I constructed an original panel covering 320 districts from 1985 to 2007 by digitising historical statistical publications and harmonising territorial boundaries. A shift-share instrumental-variable design combines historical East-linked settlement shares with a female-weighted East German labour-market push component. The preferred specification estimates lower divorce rates in districts with greater predicted exposure; the evidence does not separately identify an effect of female migration alone or a particular divorce-filing mechanism.

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Working Papers

Housing Security and Family Expansion: Evidence from German Homeownership

This paper studies homeownership and fertility among women in West Germany using SOEP panel data and parental homeownership as an instrument. It distinguishes entry into parenthood from transitions to second and third births. The clearest evidence is a positive estimate for the transition from one child to two, while the estimate for the number of children observed is imprecise. The analysis does not establish an effect on completed family size.

Transition to Adulthood: Local Rents and Leaving the Parental Home

This paper links SOEP residence histories to quality-adjusted rent indices at the parental-home postal code to study when and where young adults first leave the parental home, with variation by migration background. It distinguishes differences across locations from changes within locations over time. Higher rents predict earlier exits across locations, whereas the within-postal-code association is weakly negative and imprecise for natives. These patterns do not establish a causal effect of rents on exit timing.