Essays in applied microeconomics

This thesis consists of three chapters dealing with important topics for the well-being of individuals: retirement, health and happiness. All together are micro studies that deal with policy relevant research questions. The first chapter focuses on whether a pension reform has effects on income smoothing and labor supply of older single individuals in the Netherlands, in the presence of uncertainty about income, health and life expectancy. The second one is about the effects of health insurance on individuals' behavior. It evaluates the impact of access to a very popular Health Insurance program in Peru for individuals who work outside the formal labor market on a variety of measures for health care utilization, expenditure and health indicators. Finally, the third chapter explores individuals’ behavior from a different perspective: happiness. It investigates whether reported happiness and utility measures are correlated. The former can be obtained from questions about individual life satisfaction, happiness or well-being that are available in social surveys nowadays. But the latter are not available and have to be constructed. That is exactly what this chapter does and, afterwards, it explores whether there is any correlation between both types of measures. By doing so, the chapter shows that it is possible to link utility economic theory to data on happiness