Health spending and public pension: evidence from panel data

This article empirically investigates the determinants of aggregate health expenditure in a panel of OECD countries from 1980 to 2005. We differ from most existing studies by testing some new determinants motivated by recent theoretical advances in the literature. We find that a one percentage increase in public pension payments per elderly person leads to approximately a one third percentage increase in aggregate health spending, and this effect is significant and robust across a variety of model specifications. A back of the envelope calculation based on this estimate suggests that the expansion of the public pension programme on average accounts for approximately over one fifth of the rise in aggregate health expenditure as a share of GDP in the set of OECD countries during 1980–2005. In addition, we find that the estimated effect of GDP per capita in our model ranges from 0.66 to 0.80, which is consistent with the results from some recent studies, and thus further reinforces the finding in the literature that health care is not a luxury good.     

Firm turnover,restructuring and labour productivity in transition: the case of Poland

Many studies have found strong and positive relationship between per capita income and health care expenditure. These studies usually adopt the assumptions that (1) the relationships among the variables are constant; and/or (2) the supply-side market for health care could be treated by using standard demand functions models. To take into account of the supply side of health care, we use the demand and supply approach with the cointegration model to re-examine this issue. By using Taiwan health care expenditure data, our results show that the real income elasticity is smaller than unity and the health care expenditures are primarily for ‘curing’ rather than ‘caring’.     

Price and quantity in international comparisons of health care expenditure

An important omission from earlier cross-national comparisons of health care expenditure has been the failure to distinguish between price and quantity. Using recent data on purchasing power parities, the purpose of this article is to report some preliminary results regarding health care expenditure and quantity across 22 OECD countries. The article concludes that, contrary to what has been suggested in some recent articles, the relative price of health care is not correlated to the aggregate per capita income. The fraction of the national income that is devoted to health care provision increases with the per capita income regardless of whether health care is measured in terms of expenditure or quantity. The relative price of health care has a rationing effect on the quantity of health care that is offered, with a price alasticity close to minus one. The latter finding means that the health care expenditure is not greater in countries with higherprices. Furthermore, the differences in health care expenditure or quantity between countries persist after correction for the relative price and the income level. Part of these differences can be explained by differences in the definition of health care in the various countries.     

The cyclical response of employment to output changes: United States manufacturing industries, 1948 to 1983

This paper provides new evidence on the income elasticity of health care by combining stationarity and cointegration tests of health care expenditure and incomes with estimates of the cointegrating relationship between them. A recently updated dataset of health care expenditures and disposable personal income for the US states for the years 1966–1998 is used. The principal findings are that health care expenditures and incomes at the state level are non-stationary and cointegrated. Dynamic OLS cointegrating regressions of the pooled state time series estimate the income elasticity of health care at 0.817 to 0.844, well below unity, confirming that health care expenditure, even at the aggregate level, is a necessity good.     

Does environmental quality influence health expenditures? Empirical evidence from a panel of selected OECD countries

In this paper we examine the role of environmental quality in determining per capita health expenditures. We take a panel cointegration approach in order to explore the possibility of estimating both short-run and long-run impacts of environmental quality. Our empirical analysis is based on eight OECD countries, namely Austria, Denmark, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK for the period 1980-1999. We find that per capita health expenditure, per capita income, carbon monoxide emissions, sulphur oxide emissions and nitrogen oxide emissions are panel cointegrated. While short-run elasticities reveal that income and carbon monoxide emissions exert a statistically significant positive effect on health expenditures, in the long-run in addition to income and carbon monoxide, we find that sulphur oxide emissions have a statistically significant positive impact on health expenditures.     

相对政府支出对人民币实际汇率的影响

政府支出通过资源的退出渠道和消费的转移渠道影响实际汇率.本文首先讨论政府支出对实际汇率影响的模型,利用协整的方法对现实的数据进行了检验,证明了中美两国相对政府非贸易品人均支出、相对政府人均支出和人民币实际汇率之间存在长期的稳定关系,然后利用误差修正模型对这三者的均衡方程做了估计,并得到了中美两国相对政府非贸易品人均支出、相对政府人均支出通过资源退出渠道和消费转移渠道对人民币实际汇率影响的长期效果.     

The political economy of public health expenditure and wait times in a public‐private mixed health care system

Abstract This paper investigates the determinants of public health expenditure in a public‐private mixed health care system, where a longer wait time for public care is the major difference between public and private sectors. Voter preferences for health care vary according to their age and by income, and public policy choices are part of a multi‐dimensional, competitive political equilibrium. We show how equilibrium public health expenditure and wait times depend on demographics and explain why they are independent of the distributions of income and political influence. We also show that population aging may not always lead to more public health expenditure.     

On the relationship between GDP and health care expenditure: A new look

In this paper we analyze the relationship between income and health expenditure in 31 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. We focus on the differences between short and long term elasticities and we also check the adjustment process of health care expenditure to changes in per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and its cyclical and trend components. In both cases, we test if results differ in countries with a higher share of private expenditure on total health expenditure. Econometric results show that the long-run income elasticity is close to unity, that health expenditure is more sensitive to per capita income cyclical movements than to trend movements, and that the adjustment to income changes in those countries with a higher share of private health expenditure over total expenditure is faster.     

Convergence among five industrial countries (1870–1994): Results from a time varying cointegration approach

In this paper, we check the hypothesis of a time varying cointegration relation between four industrial countries per capita GDPs and US per capita GDP on the period from 1870 to 1994. Park and Hahn (1999) give the methodology. Results confirm the hypothesis of time evolving cointegration in all cases. Tests on the parameters of these cointegration relations show that, from the 1980s onwards, we can accept the hypothesis of stochastic convergence between France, Germany and Japan, on one hand, and the United States on the other.First version received: December 2001 / Final revision received: September 2003     

中国未来经济增长及其国际经济地位展望

论文在分析国内外历史资料和经济增长因素的基础上 ,对中国和目前经济总量世界排名前五位国家的未来经济增长率、国内生产总值以及中国人均国内生产总值进行了预测 ,得出以下基本结论 :中国国内生产总值将于 2 0 0 5年超过法国 ,2 0 0 6年超过英国 ,2 0 1 2年超过德国 ,本世纪中叶 ,有可能超过日本 ,成为世界第二经济大国 ,但在本世纪内很难超过美国 ,成为世界第一经济大国 ;2 0 50年中国人均国内生产总值将达到中等发达国家 2 0 0 0年的水平。     

The determinants of health care expenditure in Australia

The objective of this article is to examine the long-run relationship and short-run dynamics of the health care expenditure in Australia during the period 1960–2003. Consistent with the conventional findings, the income elasticity for health care is found to be greater than one, suggesting that health care is a luxury good in Australia. Demographic structure is found to exert a significant positive impact on health care expenditure. An increase in the accessibility to health care services is associated with higher per capita real health care expenditure. Finally, public funding of health care appears to have a contributory effect on the formation of health care expenditure in Australia.     

Is health care a luxury? The debate revisited with new evidence from emerging economies

This paper studies the long-run relationship between health care expenditure and income using a panel data set of emerging economies over the period 1995–2012. The results show that expenditure on health care and income are non-stationary and cointegrated. After controlling for cross-sectional dependence and unobserved heterogeneity among different countries, we find that the income elasticity of health care is less than 1, indicating that health care is a necessity and not a luxury. Government expenditure and out-of-pocket expenditure turn out to be important determinants of health care expenditure. Among non-monetary factors, results show that old age dependency and female education seem to have significant bearings on health care expenditures. Policy recommendations suggest that government should increase spending on health care in emerging economies since higher incomes may not automatically translate into higher health care spending by the people of these countries.     

DOES DISAGGREGATION AFFECT THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HEALTH CARE EXPENDITURE AND GDP? AN ANALYSIS USING REGIME SHIFTS*

This paper investigates the impact of policy shifts on disaggregated health expenditure‐GDP relationship in Australia. In contrast to previous studies the disaggregation is at the level of type of service delivered and not at the level of source of expenditure. Our results show that the subcomponents of health expenditure exhibit different patterns of behaviour at both cointegration and unit root stages once policy shifts or structural breaks are allowed in the empirical analysis. When the possibility of structural break is allowed we find a significant long‐run relationship between subcomponents of aggregate health expenditure and GDP that is not observed when break is not allowed. The underlying reasons for the occurrence of breaks and policy lessons are discussed subsequently.     

On the determination of the US aggregate health care expenditure

Per capita real health care expenditure is examined against three major groups of explanatory variables: economic, demographic, and health stock, and it is found that the three groups of variables have an impact on real health care spending. Other subcategories, such as real private, and government health care, pharmaceutical, dental, home nursing, ambulatory, personal medical consumption, and in-patient expenditures have also been examined, and have been found to be affected by the explanatory variables. For several subcomponents there is evidence of supplier inducement. Of the demographic group of variables, the ageing population had an impact only on the per capita real overall, and private health care outlay, and pharmaceutical spending. Also, cointegrating relationships were found and consistent estimators of the elasticities found.     

Prices,infrastructure, household characteristics and child height

A Brazilian household survey, ENDEF, in 1974-75 and the 1974 Informacoes Basicas Municipais (IBM) provided data for the analysis of the impact of community services and infrastructure and household characteristics on the logarithm of child height, standardized for age and gender. The sample was comprised of 36,974 children stratified by residential location, the child's age, and the educational level of the mother. Variance and covariance matrices were estimated with the jackknife developed by Efron (1982). Household characteristics included the logarithm of per capita expenditure as a measure of household resource availability, income, and parental education. Community characteristics were local market price indices for 6 food groups (dairy products, beans, cereals, meat, fish, and sugar), level of urbanization, buildings with sewage, water, and electricity connections per capita, per capita number of buildings, and population density. Health services were measured as per capita number of hospitals and clinics and doctors and nurses, and the number of beds are hospital. Educational services include a measure of student teacher ratios, elementary school class size, and per capita number of teachers living in the community. the results show that expenditure had a positive, significant effect on the height of children 2 years and older. Expenditure was a significant determinant for literate and illiterate mothers, and not well educated mothers. The impact of maternal education was largest on the length of babies and declined with the age of the child. Father's education had not impact of length of babies. The effect of parents' education was complementary. The effect of father's education was largest when mothers had some education. Better educated parents had healthier children. Maternal rather than paternal height had an impact of the length of a baby. In the community models, prices had a significant effect on child height, in both urban and rural areas, in all age groups, and for all levels of maternal education. Higher prices were associated with shorter children. Joint price and expenditure interactions were significant. Children at the top of the expenditure distribution were more affected by some prices than by others. Capital building improvements alone and with expenditures were all positively associated with child height. Only nurses per capita impacted on child height.     

IS HISPANIC POPULATION DISPERSION INTO RURAL COUNTIES CONTRIBUTING TO LOCAL ECONOMIC GROWTH?

In the 1990s, rural counties in the United States, which had been losing population, became the destinations for an increasing number of Hispanics, slowing and in some cases reversing population declines. In this paper, we examine whether faster growth in the Hispanic population is linked to faster growth in income per capita in rural counties. Our results indicate strong support for the hypothesis that population growth caused by the increase in Hispanics, whether from international immigrants, migrants from within the United States, or from natural growth in families, has fueled increased economic growth in those small, rural communities whose populations had been in decline during the 1970s or the 1980s. (JEL J15, J61, R11)     

Do population age groups matter in the energy use of the oil-exporting countries?

This study examines the impacts of the population age groups of 20–34, 35–49, 50–64 and 65–79 on the per capita energy use of the oil-exporting countries of Commonwealth Independent States: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Russia employing the modified-STIRPAT framework. Considering that estimations using non-stationary data may yield spurious results, unlike many prior STIRPAT studies, we explore integration and cointegration properties of the data and then estimate long- and short-run elasticities as well as speed of adjustment coefficients. Since our time series analysis covers only 23 observations (1990-2012), as a robustness check, we also conduct panel data analysis by pooling the mentioned countries data with that for members of Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. We apply the Autoregressive Distributed Lags Bounds Testing approach in the time series analysis and Pooled Mean Group estimator in the panel analysis, both are superior in small samples. The findings from the time series analysis are supported by those from the panel data analysis. According to the results, there is cointegrated relationship among the variables. The age groups together with affluence and oil prices have statistically significant impacts on the per capita energy use in the selected countries. Moreover, we find the speed of adjustments exhibiting different magnitudes for different countries depending on which population age group is considered. The findings suggest that policymakers should pay special attention to the population age groups of 35–49 and 50–64, as they have a large effect on per capita energy use. Since these groups are the main part of the working age population, increase in their energy consumption is likely to lead to economic growth. Furthermore, the policymakers should take into consideration the finding that speed of adjustments towards an equilibrium path is quite high. It implies that any policy related shocks to the per capita energy use relationship could disappear within a year or even sooner.     

The determinants of access to health care and medicines in India

This article explores the issue of demand for health care and medicines in India where household share of total health expenditure is one of the highest among high- and low-income countries. Previous work found that important determinants include health status, socio-demographics, income and demand for care was inelastic. Compared with previous studies, this article uses large household data sets including data on medicine expenditure to explore health-seeking behaviour. Count models find that determinants include health status, socio-demographic information, health insurance, household expenditure and government regulation. Elasticities range from ?0.13 to 0.03 and are generally consistent with literature findings. For inpatient care, conditional on having at least one hospitalization, the expected number of hospitalizations increases with being male and household expenditure. Medicine expenditure accounts for a large share of household health expenditure. Low-income individuals could experience problems and raises important policy implications on the demand and supply side to improve access to health care and medicines for patients in India.     

妇幼保健院规模与妇幼保健水平的关系:基于全国省级面板数据的研究

妇幼保健院在中国医疗卫生领域具有相当特殊的地位。在妇幼保健院对中国妇幼健康水平有积极作用的假设下,采用31个省级地区的面板数据构建实证模型,研究妇幼保健院规模对妇幼保健水平和医疗费用的影响。妇幼保健院床位数与孕产妇死亡率有显著的正相关,对活产数有显著的消极影响,出现这一现象的原因可能是妇幼保健院相对落后的医疗技术条件。同时,妇幼保健院床位数的增长对卫生机构支出存在正向影响,但对于居民家庭人均医疗支出则存在城乡差异。建议应重视妇幼保健院的发展,全面提升妇幼保健院的技术和服务水平,缓解大综型医疗机构接诊压力。     

The causal dynamics between renewable energy,real GDP,emissions and oil prices: evidence from OECD countries

This study extends the empirical literature on the determinants of renewable energy consumption in the case of 25 OECD countries for the period 1980–2011. Preliminary analysis suggests the presence of cross-sectional dependence within the panel data. As a result, second-generation panel unit root tests of Smith et al. (2004) and Pesaran (2007) are undertaken to find the respective variables that are integrated of order one. Panel cointegration and error correction modelling reveal that a long-run relationship exists between renewable energy consumption per capita, real GDP per capita, carbon dioxide emissions per capita and real oil prices. The long-run elasticity estimates are positive and statistically significant for real GDP per capita, carbon dioxide emissions per capita and real oil prices. The panel error correction model shows that a feedback relationship exists among the variables.