This technique has already been used previously to analyze the effectiveness of anti-smoking laws 18 , since it provides some advantages that can be summarized as: 1) it considers the average of the complete sample and measures its relative convergence, 2) it takes into account heterogeneities, which are based in a non-linear time-varying factorial model, 3) it considers heterogeneities, which depends on a non-linear time-varying factorial model, 4) it is robust to the unit root properties of the series, 5) the results are unbiased and consistent, and 6) eliminates the need for an ex-ante sample separation since it has a new algorithm based on data to determine the clusters of the subgroups of convergence

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Smokers of light cigarettes often take deeper puffs or smoke more, leading to nicotine and tar intake levels similar to regular cigarettes
"This is the culmination of years of work against the background of intense lobbying from the tobacco industry and its front groups