We develop and simulate a stochastic lifecycle model to investigate optimal annuity purchases at retirement. Retirees can invest in risky assets, purchase fairly priced immediate or deferred lifetime annuities, and are eligible for a targeted safety net pension. We match baseline parameters to...

This dissertation consists of two essays. In the first essay I show that there are substantial differences in unemployment durations and reemployment outcomes for workers coming from different occupations. I argue that this variation can be explained by differences in occupational employment...

This essay is a response to a growing negative literature that suggests that most modern economic theories - including general equilibrium theory - are of limited practical relevance because they require an infeasibly large number of calculations. Many of the results are translations of abstract...

A pervasive concern with the use of self-reported health and disability measures in behavioral models is that they are biased and endogenous. A commonly suggested explanation is that survey respondents exaggerate the severity of health problems and incidence of disabilities in order to...

This paper compares the performance of the Howard (1960) policy iteration algorithm for infinite-horizon continuous-state Markovian decision processes (MDP's) using alternative random, quasi-random, and deterministic discretizations of the state space, or grids. Each grid corresponds to an...