The determinants of football match attendance revisited: Empirical evidence from the Spanish Football League

An attendance equation is estimated using data on individual games played in the Spanish First Division Football League. The specification includes as explanatory factors: economic variables, quality, uncertainty and opportunity costs. We concentrate the analysis on some specification issues such as controlling the effect of unobservables given the panel data structure of the data set, the type of functional form and the potential endogeneity of prices. We obtain the expected effects on attendance for all the variables. The estimated price elasticities are smaller than one in absolute value as usually occurs in this literature but are sensitive to the specification issues.Attendance, price elasticity, panel data

Demand for private health insurance: Is there a quality gap?

Quality of care is qualified as a main determinant of the demand for voluntary private health insurance (PHI) in National Health Systems (NHS). This paper provides new evidence on the influence of the quality gap between public and private health insurance and other demand determinants in the demand for PHI in Catalonia. The demand for PHI is modelled as a demand for health care quality. Unlike previous studies, the database employed allows for the development of a link between the theoretical and the empirical model dealing with unobserved heterogeneity and endogeneity issues. Results suggest that a rise in PHI quality enhances an equivalent influence in the demand for PHI as an equal reduction of NHS quality. Income and price elasticity estimates are consistent with the observed feature that PHI appears to be a luxury good and individuals tend to be relatively insensible to tax relief's and monetary co-payments in insurance contracts.Private health insurance, health care quality, insurance premium

Design and manufacturing workshop using the design thinking methodology

Comunicació presentada al ICERI 2019 12th annual International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation (Seville, Spain. 11-13 November, 2019).The purpose of this paper is to describe and discuss the experience under the methodology of Design Thinking, using a workshop format. This workshop, which took place on October 18th and 19th, 2018, in the BUC (Biblioteca Urbana del Coneixement) building in Vila-real, was attended by about a hundred students who had been displaced from the EASD in Valencia. The objective was to create an artistic work for the municipality of Vila-real with the students collaboration. Design Thinking methodology was implemented to carry out the artistic work. The ultimate goal was not only to get an idea, it was important to build it. The students were able to follow the manufacturing process in collaboration with the KrionTM company that offered their Solid Surface product, which possibilities in design terms this company is currently exploring. This was done in the following months, as the manufacture required its time

Body size, activity, employment and wages in Europe: A first approach

This paper examines the associations between obesity, employment status and wages for several European countries. Our results provide weak evidence that obese workers are more likely to be unemployed or tend to be more segregated in self-employment jobs than their non-obese counterparts. We also find difficult to detect statistically significant relationships between obesity and wages. As previously reported in the literature, the association between obesity, unemployment and wages seems to be different for men and women. Moreover, heterogeneity is also found across countries. Such heterogeneity can be somewhat explained by some labor market institutions, such as the collective bargaining coverage and the employer-provided health insurance.Obesity, labor market, heterogeneity, institutions

Obesity, Wages and Employment in Europe

This paper examines the associations between obesity, employment status and wages for several European countries. Our results provide weak evidence that obese workers are more likely to be unemployed or tend to be more segregated in self-employment jobs than their non-obese counterparts. We also find difficult to detect statistically significant relationships between obesity and wages. As previously reported in the literature, the association between obesity, unemployment and wages seems to be different for men and women. Moreover, heterogeneity is also found across countries. Such heterogeneity can be somewhat explained by some labor market institutions, such as the collective bargaining coverage and the employer-provided health insurance.obesity, labor market, heterogeneity, institutions.

Female labour supply in Spain: The importance of behavioural assumptions and unobserved heterogeneity specification

We estimate four models of female labour supply using a Spanish sample of married women from 1994, taking into account the complete form of the individual’s budget set. The models differ in the hypotheses relating to the presence of optimisation errors and/or the way non-workers contribute to the likelihood function. According to the results, the effects of wages and non-labour income on the labour supply of Spanish married women depend on the specification used. The model which has both preference and optimisation errors and allows for both voluntarily and involuntarily unemployed females desiring to participate seems to better fit the evidence for Spanish married women.Labour supply, taxes, unobserved heterogeneity

The evolution of adult height in Europe: A brief note

This paper presents new evidence on the evolution of adult height in 10 European countries for cohorts born between 1950 and 1980 using the European Community Household Panel (ECHP), which collects height data from Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Sweden. Our findings show a gradual increase in adult height across all countries. However, countries from Southern Europe (Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain) experienced higher gains in stature than those located in Northern Europe (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland and Sweden).Europe, height, ECHP

Income and body mass index in Europe

The problem of obesity is alarming public health authorities around the world. Therefore, it is important to study its determinants. In this paper we explore the empirical relationship between household income and body mass index (BMI) in nine European Union countries. Our findings suggest that the association is negative for women, but we find no statistically significant relationship for men. However, we show that the different relationship for men and women appears to be driven by the negative relationship for women between BMI and individual income from work. We tentatively conclude that the negative relationship between household income and BMI for women may simply be capturing the wage penalty that obese women suffer in the labor market.Europe, obesity, income