Essays on pension systems, uncertainty and economic growth.

摘要

This thesis studies two important policy questions. The first is the effects on the economy and welfare of pension reform, a major policy issue for most countries in the world. This thesis provides a new approach to this issue by building a simulation model where uncertainty is considered explicitly. Workers in this model face uncertainty about their labor income in the form of transitory and permanent shocks. Different pension systems transmit this uncertainty to pensions in different ways, i.e. they have different insurance properties. The economic and welfare effects of the changes in these insurance properties are the focus of this analysis. Two relevant cases are studied. One is the elimination of redistribution in the formula of a system defined in benefits (DB). A measure of the value workers place on redistribution is obtained. The results indicate that redistribution is valued positively by all types of workers, even by those who expect to be harmed by it. Workers increase their savings to prepare for the increased uncertainty. The second case is the change from a DB system to one defined in contributions (DC). Welfare increases with the adoption of the DC system because it has superior insurance properties, i.e. the variance of pensions is lower. The reduced uncertainty implies lower savings due to precautionary motives.;The second question studied herein is the determinants and economic consequences of the concentration of population around capital cities across countries. This phenomenon has been observed in many countries in the world where capital cities hosts a disproportionally high fraction of the population. This thesis builds a model to study the consequences of distortions in the spatial allocation of resources in production. The empirical results obtained show a negative correlation between this distortion and economic growth. The second part of the study finds the determinants of excessive concentration of population in capitals. Three hypotheses advanced in the literature are tested. The study finds that barriers to trade do not explain concentration in capitals, nor does political instability. Both results are robust and oppose previous findings in the literature. This thesis finds that concentration in capitals is explained by the lack of political rights in the population.