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Does Official Development Assistance for health from developed countries displace government health expenditure in Sub-Saharan countries?

Author

Listed:
  • Karim Barkat

    (Qatar University)

  • Zouhair Mrabet

    (Qatar University)

  • Mouyad Alsamara

    (Qatar University)

Abstract

This paper empirically examines the foreign aid fungibility in the health sector of 45 Sub-Saharan countries over the period of 1995-2012. The aim of the study is to investigate the effect of foreign health aid on government health expenditure by using two methods: the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) and the Fixed Effect Instrumental Variables (FE-IV). The estimation was conducted on the full sample and on two sub samples: middle- and low-income countries. We found strong evidence of partial fungibility in the health sector as follows: an increase of 1% in health aid leads to an increase of 0.04 to 0.1% of government health spending, noting that the magnitude of fungibility in middle-income countries is higher than in the low-income ones.

Suggested Citation

  • Karim Barkat & Zouhair Mrabet & Mouyad Alsamara, 2016. "Does Official Development Assistance for health from developed countries displace government health expenditure in Sub-Saharan countries?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 36(3), pages 1616-1635.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-15-00775
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Barkat, Karim & Sbia, Raschid & Maouchi, Youcef, 2019. "Empirical evidence on the long and short run determinants of health expenditure in the Arab world," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 78-87.
    2. Jamiil Jeetoo, 2020. "Spillover effects in public healthcare expenditure in Sub‐Saharan Africa: A spatial panel analysis," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 32(2), pages 257-268, June.
    3. Vyas, Vishal & Mehta, Kiran & Sharma, Renuka, 2023. "The nexus between toxic-air pollution, health expenditure, and economic growth: An empirical study using ARDL," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 154-166.
    4. Barkat, Karim & Alsamara, Mouyad & Mimouni, Karim, 2023. "Can remittances alleviate energy poverty in developing countries? New evidence from panel data," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    5. Jamiil Jeetoo, 2020. "Healthcare Expenditure and Baumol Cost Disease in Sub-Sahara Africa," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(4), pages 2704-2716.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Health; Public Health Expenditure; Foreign Aid; Fungibility;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H0 - Public Economics - - General
    • H5 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies

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