IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/hepoli/v91y2009i1p57-62.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The core determinants of health expenditure in the African context: Some econometric evidence for policy

Author

Listed:
  • Murthy, Vasudeva N.R.
  • Okunade, Albert A.

Abstract

This paper, using cross-sectional data from 44 (83% of all) African countries for year 2001, presents econometric model estimates linking real per-capita health expenditure (HEXP) to a host of economic and non-economic factors. The empirical results of OLS and robust LAE estimators indicate that real per-capita GDP (PRGDP) and real per-capita foreign aid (FAID) resources are both core and statistically significant correlates of HEXP. Our empirical results suggest that health care in the African context is technically, a necessity rather than a luxury good (for the OECD countries). This suggests that the goal of health system in Africa is primarily 'physiological' or 'curative' rather than 'caring' or 'pampering'. The positive association of HEXP with FAID hints that external resource inflows targeting health could be instrumental for spurring economic progress in good policy environments. Most African countries until the late 1990s experienced economic and political instability, and faced stringent structural adjustment mandates of the major international financial institution lenders for economic development. Therefore, our finding a positive effect of FAID on HEXP could suggest that external resource inflows softened some of the macroeconomic fiscal deficit impacts on HEXP in the 2000s. Policy implications of country-specific elasticity estimates are given.

Suggested Citation

  • Murthy, Vasudeva N.R. & Okunade, Albert A., 2009. "The core determinants of health expenditure in the African context: Some econometric evidence for policy," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 57-62, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:hepoli:v:91:y:2009:i:1:p:57-62
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168-8510(08)00222-4
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Olivier Morand, 2004. "Economic growth, longevity and the epidemiological transition," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 5(2), pages 166-174, May.
    2. Rodrigo R. Soares, 2005. "Mortality Reductions, Educational Attainment, and Fertility Choice," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 580-601, June.
    3. David N. Well, 2007. "Accounting for the Effect Of Health on Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 1265-1306.
    4. Joseph P. Newhouse, 1977. "Medical-Care Expenditure: A Cross-National Survey," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 12(1), pages 115-125.
    5. Okunade, Albert A. & Murthy, Vasudeva N. R., 2002. "Technology as a 'major driver' of health care costs: a cointegration analysis of the Newhouse conjecture," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 147-159, January.
    6. Dreger, C. & Reimers, H.E., 2005. "Health Care Expenditures in OECD Countries: A Panel Unit Root and Cointegration Analysis," International Journal of Applied Econometrics and Quantitative Studies, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 2(2), pages 5-20.
    7. Hansen, Paul & King, Alan, 1996. "The determinants of health care expenditure: A cointegration approach," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 127-137, February.
    8. Frank T. Denton & Byron G. Spencer, 1975. "Health-Care Costs When the Population Changes," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 8(1), pages 34-48, February.
    9. Gerdtham, Ulf-G. & Jonsson, Bengt, 2000. "International comparisons of health expenditure: Theory, data and econometric analysis," Handbook of Health Economics, in: A. J. Culyer & J. P. Newhouse (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 1, pages 11-53, Elsevier.
    10. Lant Pritchett & Lawrence H. Summers, 1996. "Wealthier is Healthier," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 31(4), pages 841-868.
    11. Gbesemete, Kwame P. & Gerdtham, Ulf-G., 1992. "Determinants of health care expenditure in Africa: A cross-sectional study," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 303-308, February.
    12. N.R. Murthy & Albert Okunade, 2000. "Managed care, deficit financing, and aggregate health care expenditure in the United States: A cointegration analysis," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 3(4), pages 279-285, September.
    13. Gerdtham, Ulf-G. & Sogaard, Jes & Andersson, Fredrik & Jonsson, Bengt, 1992. "An econometric analysis of health care expenditure: A cross-section study of the OECD countries," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 63-84, May.
    14. Office of Health Economics, 2007. "The Economics of Health Care," For School 001490, Office of Health Economics.
    15. Suraratdecha, Chutima & Okunade, Albert A., 2006. "Measuring operational efficiency in a health care system: A case study from Thailand," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 2-23, June.
    16. Paul Marschall & Steffen Flessa, 2008. "Expanding access to primary care without additional budgets? A case study from Burkina Faso," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 9(4), pages 393-403, November.
    17. J. Outreville, 2007. "Foreign direct investment in the health care sector and most-favoured locations in developing countries," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 8(4), pages 305-312, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Di Matteo, Livio, 2005. "The macro determinants of health expenditure in the United States and Canada: assessing the impact of income, age distribution and time," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 23-42, January.
    2. Muhammad Arshad Khan & Muhammad Iftikhar Ul Husnain, 2019. "Is health care a luxury or necessity good? Evidence from Asian countries," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 213-233, June.
    3. Joan Costa-Font & Marin Gemmill & Gloria Rubert, 2008. "Re-visiting the Health Care Luxury Good Hypothesis: Aggregation, Precision, and Publication Biases?," Working Papers in Economics 197, Universitat de Barcelona. Espai de Recerca en Economia.
    4. Badi H. Baltagi & Raffaele Lagravinese & Francesco Moscone & Elisa Tosetti, 2017. "Health Care Expenditure and Income: A Global Perspective," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(7), pages 863-874, July.
    5. Felipa de Mello-Sampayo & Sofia de Sousa-Vale, 2014. "Financing Health Care Expenditure in the OECD Countries: Evidence from a Heterogeneous, Cross-Sectional Dependent Panel," Panoeconomicus, Savez ekonomista Vojvodine, Novi Sad, Serbia, vol. 61(2), pages 207-225.
    6. Di Matteo, Livio & Cantarero-Prieto, David, 2018. "The Determinants of Public Health Expenditures: Comparing Canada and Spain," MPRA Paper 87800, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Felipa de Mello-Sampayo & Sofia de Sousa-Vale, 2014. "Financing Health Care Expenditure in the OECD Countries: Evidence from a Heterogeneous, Cross-Sectional Dependent Panel," Panoeconomicus, Savez ekonomista Vojvodine, Novi Sad, Serbia, vol. 61(2), pages 207-225, March.
    8. Byaro, Mwoya & Kinyondo, Abel & Michello, Charles & Musonda, Patrick, 2018. "Determinants of Public Health Expenditure Growth in Tanzania: An Application of Bayesian Model," African Journal of Economic Review, African Journal of Economic Review, vol. 6(1), January.
    9. Narayan, Paresh Kumar & Narayan, Seema, 2008. "Does environmental quality influence health expenditures? Empirical evidence from a panel of selected OECD countries," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 367-374, April.
    10. Murthy, Vasudeva N.R. & Okunade, Albert A., 2016. "Determinants of U.S. health expenditure: Evidence from autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach to cointegration," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 67-73.
    11. 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.
    12. Baltagi, Badi H. & Moscone, Francesco, 2010. "Health care expenditure and income in the OECD reconsidered: Evidence from panel data," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 804-811, July.
    13. Vasudeva N. R. Murthy & Natalya Ketenci, 2017. "Is technology still a major driver of health expenditure in the United States? Evidence from cointegration analysis with multiple structural breaks," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 29-50, March.
    14. Masayoshi Hayashi & Akiko Oyama, 2014. "Factor Decomposition of Inter-prefectural Health Care Expenditure Disparities in Japan," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-948, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    15. Di Matteo, Livio, 2000. "The determinants of the public-private mix in Canadian health care expenditures: 1975-1996," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 87-112, June.
    16. Di Matteo, Livio & Di Matteo, Rosanna, 1998. "Evidence on the determinants of Canadian provincial government health expenditures: 1965-1991," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 211-228, April.
    17. Mehdi Barati & Hadiseh Fariditavana, 2020. "Asymmetric effect of income on the US healthcare expenditure: evidence from the nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 58(4), pages 1979-2008, April.
    18. Caravaggio, Nicola & Resce, Giuliano, 2023. "Enhancing Healthcare Cost Forecasting: A Machine Learning Model for Resource Allocation in Heterogeneous Regions," Economics & Statistics Discussion Papers esdp23090, University of Molise, Department of Economics.
    19. DO ANGO, Simplicio & AMBA OYON, Claude Marius, 2016. "Health expenditure and Real disposable Income in the ECCAS: A Causal Study using spatial panel approach," MPRA Paper 79684, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Marwa Farag & A. NandaKumar & Stanley Wallack & Dominic Hodgkin & Gary Gaumer & Can Erbil, 2012. "The income elasticity of health care spending in developing and developed countries," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 12(2), pages 145-162, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:hepoli:v:91:y:2009:i:1:p:57-62. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu or the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/healthpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.