Abstract: A vast literature analysed the tobacco industry in the past. However, most of the previous studies dealt with final demand or crop production. Instead, there are only a few works that examined the whole tobacco industry in general, and the Italian and Greece in particular. This book aims to filling this gap: this contribution is even needed if we take into account that tobacco consumption is currently decreasing, but there is the possibility to grow tobacco for others purposes thanks to biotechnologies. In this context, quantitative models of the tobacco industry can be of great help for policy making. To achieve this aim, the book is organized in three parts, which describe three different quantitative approaches: an econometric modelling approach, a linear programming approach and an Input - Output approach. This book can be therefore of interest to both public policy makers, as well as academics and private investors, involved in the tobacco industry.
Abstract: After heart disease, cancer is the most common cause of death in many developed countries. Understanding how the overall cancer incidence evolves during economic growth can help macroeconomic attempts to forecast the economic impact of cancer and to manage resources allocation in planning health services. In this paper, we discuss the relationship between economic growth and cancer incidence. The purposes of the paper are to describe and measure the influence of an increasing real per capita income on the overall incidence of cancer. Using worldwide cross-sectional data for 162 countries, regression results with crude and age-standardised rates, allow us to measure the elasticity of cancer incidence with respect to per capita income, and to decompose the elasticity coefficient into two components: age-effect and lifestyle-effect. Finally, we try to develop a basic framework in order to explain how economic structural changes on the demand-side can affect the evolution of cancer incidence.
Abstract: In this paper we examine some basic stylized facts of economic growth according to the modern restatement of the classical theory of income distribution. In particular, we make use of a wage-profit frontier in order to explore the patterns of technical change experienced by a set of eighteen industrialized economies, during the last forty years. Our main purpose is to document the evolution of technical change. Using empirical evidence from the Italian industry, we also make an attempt to provide an explanation to data from a classical perspective, alternative to the standard approach founded on the aggregate production function.
