Full Citation
Title: Essays in Heterogeneous Agent Macroeconomics
Citation Type: Dissertation/Thesis
Publication Year: 2011
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Abstract: This thesis is comprised of three chapters. The Örst article studies the determinants of the labor force participation of elderly American males and investigates the factors that may account for the changes in retirement between 1950 and 2000. We develop a life-cycle general equilib- rium model with endogenous retirement that embeds Social Security legislation and Medicare. Individuals are ex ante heterogeneous with respect to their preferences for leisure and face uncer- tainty about labor productivity, health status and out-of-pocket medical expenses. The model is calibrated to the U.S. economy in 2000 and is able to reproduce very closely the retirement be- havior of the American population. It reproduces the peaks in the distribution of Social Security applications at ages 62 and 65 and the observed facts that low earners and unhealthy individuals retire earlier. It also matches very closely the increase in retirement from 1950 to 2000. Changes in Social Security policy - which became much more generous - and the introduction of Medicare account for most of the expansion of retirement. In contrast, the isolated impact of the increase in longevity was a delaying of retirement. In the second article, I develop an overlapping generations model of criminal behavior, which extends prior research on crime by taking into account individualsílabor supply decisions and the stigma e§ect that a§ects convicted o§enders, lowering their likelihood of employment. I use the model to guide a quantitative assessment of the determinants of crime and of a counterfactual experiment in which an income redistribution policy is thought as an alternative to greater law enforcement. The model economy considered in this paper is populated by heterogeneous agents who live for a realistic number of periods, have preferences over consumption and leisure, and di§er in terms of their age, their skills as well as their employment shocks. In addition, savings may be precautionary and allow partial insurance against the labor income shocks. Because of the lack of full insurance, this model generates an endogenous distribution of wealth across consumers, enabling us to assess the welfare implications of the redistribution policy experiment. I calibrated the model using the US data for 1980 and then use the model to investigate the changes in criminality between 1980 and 1996. The main results that come out of this study are: 1) Law enforcement policy was the most important factor behind the fall in criminality in the period, while the increase in inequality was the most important single factor promoting crime; 2) Stigmatization is not a free-cost crime control policy; 3) Income redistribution can be a powerful alternative policy to Öght crime. Finally, the third article studies the impact of HIV/AIDS on per capita income and education. It explores two channels from HIV/AIDS to income that have not been su¢ ciently stressed by the literature: the reduction of the incentives to study due to shorter expected longevity and the reduction of productivity of experienced workers. In the model individuals live for three periods, may get infected in the second period and with some probability die of Aids before reaching the third period of their life. Parents care for the welfare of the future generations so that they will maximize lifetime utility of their dynasty. The simulations predict that the most a§ected countries in Sub-Saharan Africa will be in the future, on average, thirty percent poorer than they would be without AIDS. Schooling will decline in some cases by forty percent. These Ögures are dramatically reduced with widespread medical treatment, as it increases the survival probability and productivity of infected individuals.
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Authors: Rodrigues dos Santos, Marcelo
Institution: Escola de Pos-Graduacao em Economia da Fundacao Getulio Vargas
Department: Economics
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Degree:
Publisher Location: Rio De Janeiro
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Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Other
Countries: United States