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Submitted by Marcelo Rodrigues Santos (msantos@fgvmail.br) on 2013-01-15T18:29:58Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese_Marcelo_Santos_jan13.pdf: 643590 bytes, checksum: 986945c2768c3d227d26baa34c26c43d (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Marcia Bacha (marcia.bacha@fgv.br) on 2013-01-31T11:31:22Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese_Marcelo_Santos_jan13.pdf: 643590 bytes, checksum: 986945c2768c3d227d26baa34c26c43d (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-01-31T11:32:36Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese_Marcelo_Santos_jan13.pdf: 643590 bytes, checksum: 986945c2768c3d227d26baa34c26c43d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-02-25 / This thesis is comprised of three chapters. The first 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 equilibrium 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 uncertainty 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 behavior 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 individuals' labor supply decisions and the stigma effect that affects convicted offenders, 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 differ 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 fight 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 sufficiently 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 affected 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 figures are dramatically reduced with widespread medical treatment, as it increases the survival probability and productivity of infected individuals. / Esta tese é composta por três capítulos. O primeiro capítulo investiga os determinantes da queda da participação da força de trabalho dos idosos americanos entre 1950 e 2000. Entre os principais resultados, temos que as mudanças na política de Segurança Social - que se tornou muito mais generosa - e da introdução do Medicare respondem pela maior parte da expansão da aposentadoria. Em contraste, o impacto isolado do aumento da expectativa de vida é um aumento na participação na força de trabalho. No segundo artigo, eu desenvolvo um modelo de gerações sobrepostas com comportamento criminoso endógeno, o qual estende a pesquisa prévia sobre o crime na medida em que leva em conta preferências por lazer e o efeito do estigma que afeta os condenados, diminuindo a probabilidade de emprego. Eu uso o modelo para guiar a análise quantitativa dos determinantes do crime e de um experimento contrafactual no qual uma política de redistribuição de renda é pensada como uma alternativa mais gastos no aparato de polícia. Os principais resultados que saem deste estudo são: 1) Mais gastos no aparato de polícia foi o fator mais importante por trás da queda na criminalidade no período, enquanto o aumento da desigualdade foi o fator mais importante para a promoção do crime; 2) A estigmatização não é uma política de controle da ciminalidade sem custos; 3) A redistribuição de renda pode ser uma política alternativa poderosa para combater o crime. Finalmente, o terceiro artigo estuda o impacto do HIV/AIDS sobre a renda per capita e a acumulação de capital humano. Ele explora dois canais de HIV / AIDS para a renda que não foram suficientemente sublinhados pela literatura: a redução dos incentivos para estudar devido à menor longevidade esperada e a redução da produtividade dos trabalhadores mais experientes. As simulações prevêem que os países mais afetados na África Subsaariana vão ser no futuro, em média, 30 por cento mais pobres do que seriam sem AIDS. Escolaridade vai diminuir em alguns casos, 40 por cento. Esses resultados são drasticamente reduzidos com o tratamento médico generalizado, uma vez que aumenta a probabilidade de sobrevivência e produtividade das pessoas infectadas.