Three Essays In Empirical Economics

Author : Iftekharul Huq
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 132 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (113 download)

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Download or read book Three Essays in Empirical Economics written by Iftekharul Huq and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thesis consists of three essays in empirical economics. The first essay investigates howthe smoking behavior of an individual changes when faced with a change in income and taxes oncigarettes in a price-tiered cigarette market structure. To explain the behavior of smokers a simpletwo-period model is developed. The model makes certain predictions which have been tested witha unique panel dataset from the International Tobacco Control (ITC) surveys. Findings from theregression models illustrate that a change in price is negatively correlated with cigaretteconsumption, whereas a change in income is positively correlated with the same variable. It isfurther observed from the regression results that higher income increases the probability to uptradeand reduces the probability to quit smoking. Besides, higher cigarette taxation raises theprobability to down-trade and reduces the probability to up-trade. Interestingly higher taxes do notraise the probability to quit smoking. The findings of the paper hold strong policy relevance. Itreveals the need for overall cigarette taxes to be raised to an extent so that it off-sets any positiveeffects of income growth. In addition, tier-taxes should be designed with caution so that highertaxes do not encourage smokers to down-trade but rather pushes them to quit smoking altogether.The second essay studies how a change in the Perception of Tobacco Risk (PTR) affects theattitude of smokers and non-smokers towards smoking. Using the same panel data-set as the firstessay, a Perception of Tobacco Risk Index (PTRI) is developed for all smokers and non-smokers.Results show that among all different types of smokers, quitters have the highest PTRI whereasbidi (cheap local alternative to cigarettes) smokers have the lowest. Among the different sociodemographicgroups the higher income, more educated, and those living in urban areas display ahigher PTRI than their respective counterparts. However, when looking at a change in PTRI, it isobserved that the change is bigger among the lower income, less educated and those living in ruralareas. Analysis of panel data reveals that the change in PTRI is positively correlated with theprobability to quit smoking for most socio-demographic groups. However, increase in PTRI doesnot significantly affect initiation of smoking and reduces cigarette consumption per day only forthe more educated group. Such results hold strong policy implications. First, they show thatchanging PTR holds promising implications for controlling tobacco consumption concerningraising quitting probability. Second, they bring into light, specific socio-demographic groupswhere policies to change PTR should be targeted.The final essay is a joint paper. In this essay, we explore the concepts of provincial gross, netand share of net mobility rates across education and age groups using the Survey of Labor andIncome Dynamics (SLID, 1993-2011) of Canada. Our results show that provincial mobility ofyoung and more educated are more than their counterparts. The share of net mobility rates revealsthat young and less educated individuals mostly have one-way inter-provincial mobility.Moreover, inter-provincial migration using gravity model shows that the effects of border andpopulation sizes of destination and original provinces have positive influences and distances havethe negative influence on provincial migration. We also identify a positive correlation betweenprovincial in- and out-migration in Canada. This shows that provinces that lose more people alsoseem to attract more people. Our analysis further illustrates that net provincial mobility has astronger relationship with in-migration compared to out- migration.