Persistencia, convergencia y factores determinantes en la venta de tabaco

Abstract

This thesis deals with the relationship between sales and consumption of tobacco and various macro and microeconomic variables related to employment -such as unemployment and laboral situation-. While the relationship between sales of tobacco and unemployment in a given region is not too studied in the empirical literature, there are studies that used other methods microeconometrics to analyze the relationship between consumption of snuff and level of satisfaction or happiness. In the first chapter of this thesis the existence of Granger causality is studied between the unemployment rate (PARO) and the sale of cigarette packs (TOBACCO) in 16 regions of Spain for the period between 1989 and 2014. Following the empirical literature on causality, we propose a model of two variables as follows: TABACO = f (PARO) To study this relationship, a number of alternative econometric approaches are applied in order to assess the robustness of the results. In particular, we start from the application of the test of Toda and Yamamoto (1995), which analyzes the longitudinal dimension of our data. In a second step, we extended this work seeking nonlinear causality relationships using the Hatemi-J (2012) method. Finally, in order to analyze the behavior of the two dimensions, variations in the number of cross-sectional and time, the Granger causality test is performed by starter panel developed by Kónya (2006). Thus, in analyzing all possible scenarios the positive, negative and mixed effects; the hypotheses that can be contrasted with this first study are, among others, the following: • Increases in the unemployment rate to cause positive sales. If this hypothesis is met, you can be obtained the first evidence that dissatisfaction caused by poor employment situation can cause an individual to increase their consumption of cigarettes or begins in the consumption of the same. • Decreases in the unemployment rate caused negative sales. Similarly to the above in the first hypothesis, if this hypothesis is met, you can get evidence that the satisfaction reported a good working situation can cause an individual to decrease their consumption of cigarettes or stop eating. • Increases in the unemployment rate caused negative sales. Compliance with this hypothesis implies that in times of economic recession smokers cigarette packs go to other markets or stop using this product. • Decreases in the unemployment rate caused positive sales. The testing of this hypothesis implies, in the event that it is fulfilled, that in a period of economic boom smokers migrate back to market cigarette packets. The empirical results of this analysis suggest that, except in the País Vasco, Madrid, Baleares and Cantabria, rising unemployment causes a decrease in the sale of cigarette packs in other communities. On the contrary, in times of economic boom in which the unemployment rate decreases, no causal connection with the sale of packs is observed. These results are important because they imply that in times of recession smokers cigarette packs go to other markets; however, in a period of economic prosperity, it is not observed that they return to the market of cigarette packs. In the following chapters the study area is microeconomic. Thus, the second chapter analyzes the impact of foreign occupation on job satisfaction and the use of primary care and specialist in the Spanish national health system. Previous literature has shown that compared to employed persons, those who are self-employed have higher levels of job satisfaction-which often results in a better state of health of the collective-, lower levels of absenteeism and often they have private insurance that allows them to go directly to specialists. From all this, it is expected that this group made less use of primary care services of the national health system. By estimating a discrete choice model on the sample of those who have jobs, we test whether the probability of making use of the services of primary and specialist care is lower among self-employed than among employees, including as explanatory variables in addition This labor indicator other factors relating to the state of health of the individual, as well as other socio-economic and territorial characteristics to serve as control variables. To perform this task, the model is estimated using microdata from the National Health Survey of 2011. This survey provides information on the socioeconomic characteristics of users, their health and medical history, as well as about the use of different resources of the national health system, including the utilization of the services of family medicine and community. The third paper presents a characterization of the smoking population in Spain in terms of geographic, demographic, social and employment through a view not only descriptive but also conditionally or regression analysis. To this end, using microdata from the European Health Survey in Spain in 2014 (EESE 2014), linear regression models, discrete choice models with binary dependent unordered and ordered discrete choice models estimated variable. The main results and their possible implications from the point of view of the current socio¬health policy are discussed in this paper.