The Impact of Economic Conditions on Cigarette Consumption in the Czech Republic

This bachelor’s thesis examines the relationship between selected socioeconomic factors and the incidence of lung cancer in the Czech Republic over the period 2013-2022. The aim was to determine whether, and to what extent, variables such as the unemployment rate, real wages, the price of alcohol, the price of cigarettes, and the divorce rate influence the occurrence of this disease, and whether cigarette consumption exhibits procyclical or countercyclical behavior. Due to the delayed effects of socioeconomic factors on health outcomes, all explanatory variables were lagged by one year throughout the analysis. The methodology initially involved a multiple linear regression model with lagged variables, which revealed issues of multicollinearity and residual autocorrelation. Subsequently, a generalized least squares (GLS) model with lagged predictors and an autoregressive error structure of the first order (AR(1)) was applied to better address these deficiencies. The results indicate that real wages from the previous year are a statistically significant predictor of lung cancer incidence, with higher wages associated with lower incidence. Other variables, including unemployment and divorce rates, did not prove to be statistically significant. Based on the findings, cigarette consumption appears to be countercyclical, suggesting that exposure to tobacco smoke tends to increase during periods of economic downturn. The findings contribute to public health and policy-making by highlighting the delayed impacts of economic conditions on population health and the importance of socioeconomic interventions in the prevention of cancer-related diseases.