Four essays on the decision to retire.

Summary This thesis focuses on the retirement decision. The four chapters that make up the thesis study the transition from employment to retirement. The first essay examines the determinants of this transition in the United States, where "retirement" means social security rather than termination of employment. Any worker can "liquidate" his or her social security rights at any age between 62 and 70, according to an almost actuarially neutral scale. In other words, the longer the individual postpones this decision, the higher the monthly pension will be, but for a shorter period. Insofar as the liquidation of social security rights before the normal age of eligibility has become the norm rather than the exception, it is legitimate to reflect on the incentives that push American seniors to make this decision. As they approach retirement age, many cash-strapped individuals turn to Social Security as a safety net to fund their standard of living during a financial slump. For the unemployed in particular, social security can play the role of unemployment insurance, allowing them to finance their consumption while they look for a new job, thus keeping them in the labor market longer. The rest of the thesis focuses on the relationship between subjective well-being and retirement. This relationship is important from a normative point of view in order to understand the distribution of well-being among individuals, but especially from a positive point of view because subjective well-being has consequences for work, and therefore for retirement.