Determinants of Health in Developing Countries:Cross-Country Evidence

There is a growing consensus that stronger health systems are crucial to achieving a further reduction in child mortality. On the other hand, socioeconomic status has also long been considered to be a crucial factor to affect people fs health status. Nevertheless, there exists no consistent empirical evidence on whether or not and how health systems and socioeconomic factors affect health outcomes. This paper applies system Generalised Method of Moments (system GMM) to estimate the determinants of under-five mortality for cross-country panel data from 141 developing countries. Empirical results show that GDP per capita and the access to improved sanitation have statistically significant and favourable effects in reducing child mortality. In contrast, health system factors, which are measured by government health spending, the coverage of immunisation and skilled birth attendants, and the number of physicians per 1,000 people, do not lead to mortality reduction.