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Spending to Save? State Health Expenditure and Infant Mortality in India

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Author Info
Sonia Bhalotra () (University of Bristol, CMPO and IZA)

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Abstract

There are severe inequalities in health in the world, poor health being concentrated amongst poor people in poor countries. Poor countries spend a much smaller share of national income on health expenditure than do richer countries. What potential lies in political or growth processes that raise this share? This depends upon how effective government health spending in developing countries is. Existing research presents little evidence of an impact on childhood mortality. Using specifications similar to those in the existing literature, this paper finds a similar result for India, which is that state health spending saves no lives. However, upon allowing lagged effects, controlling in a flexible way for trended unobservables and restricting the sample to rural households, a significant effect of health expenditure on infant mortality emerges, the long run elasticity being about -0.24. There are striking differences in the impact by social group. Slicing the data by gender, birth-order, religion, maternal and paternal education and maternal age at birth, I find the weakest effects in the most vulnerable groups (with the exception of a large effect for scheduled tribes).

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Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number 2914.

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Length: 43 pages
Date of creation: Jul 2007
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Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2914

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Related research
Keywords: public spending; health; poverty; infant mortality; India;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
O15 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
O12 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Olena Nizalova & Maria Vyshnya, 2009. "Evaluation of the Impact of the Mother and Infant Health Project in Ukraine," Discussion Papers 18, Kyiv School of Economics, revised Nov 2009. [Downloadable!]
  2. Sonia Bhalotra, 2007. "Fatal Fluctuations? - Cyclicality in Infant Mortality in India," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 07/181, Department of Economics, University of Bristol, UK. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
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