IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jpolmo/v40y2018i6p1290-1312.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Macroeconomic and financing determinants of out of pocket payments in health care: Evidence from selected OECD countries

Author

Listed:
  • Grigorakis, Nikolaos
  • Floros, Christos
  • Tsangari, Haritini
  • Tsoukatos, Evangelos

Abstract

In this paper, we examine the impact of macroeconomic, as well public and private health insurance financing (PHI) factors on out of pocket (OOP) healthcare expenditures, by using fixed/random effects and dynamic panel data methodology to a dataset of 26EU and OECD countries for a period lasting from 1995 to 2013. The existing empirical literature has focused on testing the hypothesis that several macroeconomic and health financing determinants have an effect on OOP healthcare expenditures. Nevertheless, the related articles have not well tested the hypothesis concerning the potential impact of PHI financing on OOP spending. We find that public and PHI financing have a significant countervailing effect on OOP spending. Moreover, we show that unemployment rate has a significant positive impact on OOP expenditures. Sensitivity tests with variation of specifications and samples show that our findings are robust. We argue that policy-makers should give serious consideration to PHI institution; our results indicate that there is an inverse effect on OOP spending. We suggest that our examined countries have to provide financial risk protection to their citizens against OOP payments, rather than only attending health budgetary retrenchments in order to adjust public finances.

Suggested Citation

  • Grigorakis, Nikolaos & Floros, Christos & Tsangari, Haritini & Tsoukatos, Evangelos, 2018. "Macroeconomic and financing determinants of out of pocket payments in health care: Evidence from selected OECD countries," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 40(6), pages 1290-1312.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jpolmo:v:40:y:2018:i:6:p:1290-1312
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jpolmod.2018.02.006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0161893818300395
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jpolmod.2018.02.006?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    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. Arellano, Manuel & Bover, Olympia, 1995. "Another look at the instrumental variable estimation of error-components models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 29-51, July.
    2. Potrafke, Niklas, 2010. "The growth of public health expenditures in OECD countries: Do government ideology and electoral motives matter?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 797-810, December.
    3. McCoskey, Suzanne K. & Selden, Thomas M., 1998. "Health care expenditures and GDP: panel data unit root test results," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 369-376, June.
    4. Jochen Hartwig & Jan-Egbert Sturm, 2014. "Robust determinants of health care expenditure growth," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(36), pages 4455-4474, December.
    5. Siskou, Olga & Kaitelidou, Daphne & Papakonstantinou, Vasiliki & Liaropoulos, Lycourgos, 2008. "Private health expenditure in the Greek health care system: Where truth ends and the myth begins," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(2-3), pages 282-293, December.
    6. Clemente, Jesus & Marcuello, Carmen & Montanes, Antonio & Pueyo, Fernando, 2004. "On the international stability of health care expenditure functions: are government and private functions similar?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 589-613, May.
    7. Ifanti, Amalia A. & Argyriou, Andreas A. & Kalofonou, Foteini H. & Kalofonos, Haralabos P., 2013. "Financial crisis and austerity measures in Greece: Their impact on health promotion policies and public health care," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 113(1), pages 8-12.
    8. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2010. "Growth in a Time of Debt," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(2), pages 573-578, May.
    9. Jeffrey M Wooldridge, 2010. "Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 2, volume 1, number 0262232588, December.
    10. Ulf‐G. Gerdtham, 1992. "Pooling international health care expenditure data," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 1(4), pages 217-231, December.
    11. Hausman, Jerry, 2015. "Specification tests in econometrics," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 38(2), pages 112-134.
    12. Du Juan & Yagihashi Takeshi, 2015. "Health Care Use, Out-of-Pocket Expenditure, and Macroeconomic Conditions during the Great Recession," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 15(1), pages 1-38, January.
    13. Blundell, Richard & Bond, Stephen, 1998. "Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 115-143, August.
    14. 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.
    15. Hitiris, Theo & Posnett, John, 1992. "The determinants and effects of health expenditure in developed countries," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 173-181, August.
    16. World Bank, 2017. "World Development Indicators 2017," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 26447, December.
    17. World Bank, 2015. "World Development Indicators 2015," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 21634, December.
    18. 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.
    19. Jeong, Hyoung-Sun & Gunji, Atsuaki, 1994. "The influence of system factors upon the macro-economic efficiency of health care: implications for the health policies of developing and developed countries," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 113-140, February.
    20. Kao, Chihwa, 1999. "Spurious regression and residual-based tests for cointegration in panel data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 1-44, May.
    21. Roel van Elk & Esther Mot & P.H. Franses, 2009. "Modelling health care expenditures; overview of the literature and evidence from a panel time series model," CPB Discussion Paper 121, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    22. Baltagi, Badi H., 2015. "The Oxford Handbook of Panel Data," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199940042.
    23. Wagstaff, Adam & van Doorslaer, Eddy & van der Burg, Hattem & Calonge, Samuel & Christiansen, Terkel & Citoni, Guido & Gerdtham, Ulf-G & Gerfin, Mike & Gross, Lorna & Hakinnen, Unto, 1999. "Equity in the finance of health care: some further international comparisons1," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 263-290, June.
    24. Im, Kyung So & Pesaran, M. Hashem & Shin, Yongcheol, 2003. "Testing for unit roots in heterogeneous panels," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 53-74, July.
    25. Silvia PALASCA & Sebastian ENEA, 2014. "The Aftermath Of The Economic Crisis: Healthcare Systems’ Inequalities In Europe," CES Working Papers, Centre for European Studies, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, vol. 6(4), pages 75-91, December.
    26. Badi H. Baltagi, 2021. "Dynamic Panel Data Models," Springer Texts in Business and Economics, in: Econometric Analysis of Panel Data, edition 6, chapter 0, pages 187-228, Springer.
    27. 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.
    28. Maddala, G S & Wu, Shaowen, 1999. "A Comparative Study of Unit Root Tests with Panel Data and a New Simple Test," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 61(0), pages 631-652, Special I.
    29. Benedict Clements & Sanjeev Gupta & Masahiro Nozaki, 2013. "What happens to social spending in IMF-supported programmes?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(28), pages 4022-4033, October.
    30. 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.
    31. Choi, In, 2001. "Unit root tests for panel data," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 249-272, April.
    32. Pedro Pita Barros, 1998. "The black box of health care expenditure growth determinants," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 7(6), pages 533-544, September.
    33. O'Donnell, Owen & van Doorslaer, Eddy & Rannan-Eliya, Ravi P. & Somanathan, Aparnaa & Adhikari, Shiva Raj & Akkazieva, Baktygul & Harbianto, Deni & Garg, Charu C. & Hanvoravongchai, Piya & Herrin, Ale, 2008. "Who pays for health care in Asia?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 460-475, March.
    34. Reeves, Aaron & McKee, Martin & Basu, Sanjay & Stuckler, David, 2014. "The political economy of austerity and healthcare: Cross-national analysis of expenditure changes in 27 European nations 1995–2011," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 1-8.
    35. Ephraim Kleiman, 1974. "The Determinants of National Outlay on Health," International Economic Association Series, in: Mark Perlman (ed.), The Economics of Health and Medical Care, chapter 5, pages 66-88, Palgrave Macmillan.
    36. 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.
    37. Barros, Pedro Pita, 2012. "Health policy reform in tough times: The case of Portugal," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 106(1), pages 17-22.
    38. Donald Freeman, 2003. "Is health care a necessity or a luxury? Pooled estimates of income elasticity from US state-level data," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(5), pages 495-502.
    39. Joseph P. Newhouse, 1992. "Medical Care Costs: How Much Welfare Loss?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 6(3), pages 3-21, Summer.
    40. de Belvis, Antonio Giulio & Ferrè, Francesca & Specchia, Maria Lucia & Valerio, Luca & Fattore, Giovanni & Ricciardi, Walter, 2012. "The financial crisis in Italy: Implications for the healthcare sector," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 106(1), pages 10-16.
    41. Kronenberg, Christoph & Barros, Pedro Pita, 2014. "Catastrophic healthcare expenditure – Drivers and protection: The Portuguese case," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 44-51.
    42. Rodrigo Moreno-Serra & Christopher Millett & Peter C Smith, 2011. "Towards Improved Measurement of Financial Protection in Health," PLOS Medicine, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(9), pages 1-6, September.
    43. Jennifer Roberts, 1999. "Sensitivity of elasticity estimates for OECD health care spending: analysis of a dynamic heterogeneous data field," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(5), pages 459-472, August.
    44. Priyanka Saksena & Justine Hsu & David B Evans, 2014. "Financial Risk Protection and Universal Health Coverage: Evidence and Measurement Challenges," PLOS Medicine, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(9), pages 1-11, September.
    45. Conor Keegan & Steve Thomas & Charles Normand & Conceição Portela, 2013. "Measuring recession severity and its impact on healthcare expenditure," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 13(2), pages 139-155, June.
    46. Kentikelenis, Alexander E. & Stubbs, Thomas H. & King, Lawrence P., 2015. "Structural adjustment and public spending on health: Evidence from IMF programs in low-income countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 169-176.
    47. Valérie Paris & Marion Devaux & Lihan Wei, 2010. "Health Systems Institutional Characteristics: A Survey of 29 OECD Countries," OECD Health Working Papers 50, OECD Publishing.
    48. G. S. Maddala & Shaowen Wu, 1999. "A Comparative Study of Unit Root Tests with Panel Data and a New Simple Test," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 61(S1), pages 631-652, November.
    49. Kaitelidou, Daphne Ch. & Tsirona, Christina S. & Galanis, Petros A. & Siskou, Olga Ch. & Mladovsky, Philipa & Kouli, Eugenia G. & Prezerakos, Panagiotis E. & Theodorou, Mamas & Sourtzi, Panagiota A. &, 2013. "Informal payments for maternity health services in public hospitals in Greece," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 109(1), pages 23-30.
    50. Eddy van Doorslaer & Owen O'Donnell & Ravindra P. Rannan-Eliya & Aparnaa Somanathan & Shiva Raj Adhikari & Charu C. Garg & Deni Harbianto & Alejandro N. Herrin & Mohammed Nazmul Huq & Shamsia Ibragimo, 2007. "Catastrophic payments for health care in Asia," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(11), pages 1159-1184.
    51. Philip R. Lane, 2012. "The European Sovereign Debt Crisis," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 26(3), pages 49-68, Summer.
    52. Levin, Andrew & Lin, Chien-Fu & James Chu, Chia-Shang, 2002. "Unit root tests in panel data: asymptotic and finite-sample properties," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 1-24, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Samaratunge, Ramanie & Kumara, Ajantha Sisira & Abeysekera, Lakmal, 2020. "Breaking the Perverse Health-debt Cycle in Sri Lanka: Policy Options," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 728-745.
    2. Purcel, Alexandra-Anca & Dragos, Cristian Mihai & Mare, Codruța & Dragos, Simona Laura, 2023. "Voluntary health insurance and out-of-pocket payments in European OECD countries," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    3. García-Corchero, Juan David & Jiménez-Rubio, Dolores, 2022. "How do policy levers shape the quality of a national health system?," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 203-221.
    4. Bharathkumar, Sai Ranjani & Gupta, Santanu, 2020. "Simplex representation of insurance performance analysis," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 419-436.

    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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Hartwig, Jochen, 2008. "What drives health care expenditure?--Baumol's model of 'unbalanced growth' revisited," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 603-623, May.
    4. 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.
    5. Potrafke, Niklas, 2010. "The growth of public health expenditures in OECD countries: Do government ideology and electoral motives matter?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 797-810, December.
    6. Niklas Potrafke, 2012. "Political cycles and economic performance in OECD countries: empirical evidence from 1951–2006," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 150(1), pages 155-179, January.
    7. Carla Blazquez-Fernandez & David Cantarero & Patricio Perez, 2014. "Disentangling the heterogeneous income elasticity and dynamics of health expenditure," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(16), pages 1839-1854, June.
    8. Fengping Tian & Jiti Gao & Ke Yang, 2018. "A quantile regression approach to panel data analysis of health‐care expenditure in Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development countries," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(12), pages 1921-1944, December.
    9. 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.
    10. Moheddine Younsi & Mohamed Chakroun & Amine Nafla, 2016. "Robust analysis of the determinants of healthcare expenditure growth: evidence from panel data for low-, middle- and high-income countries," International Journal of Health Planning and Management, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(4), pages 580-601, October.
    11. Wang, Kuan-Min, 2011. "Health care expenditure and economic growth: Quantile panel-type analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 1536-1549, July.
    12. Vitor Castro, 2017. "Pure, White and Deadly… Expensive: A Bitter Sweetness in Health Care Expenditure," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(12), pages 1644-1666, December.
    13. 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.
    14. Tarik Dogru & Umit Bulut & Ercan Sirakaya-Turk, 2021. "Modeling tourism demand: Theoretical and empirical considerations for future research," Tourism Economics, , vol. 27(4), pages 874-889, June.
    15. Héctor Bellido & Lorena Olmos & Juan Antonio Román-Aso, 2019. "Do political factors influence public health expenditures? Evidence pre- and post-great recession," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 20(3), pages 455-474, April.
    16. 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.
    17. 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.
    18. Alessio Ciarlone, 2019. "The relationship between financial development and growth: the case of emerging Europe," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 521, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    19. Ärshiya Ämiri & Mikael Linden, 2016. "Income and total expenditure on health in OECD countries: Evidence from panel data and Hsiao's version of Granger non-causality tests," Economics and Business Letters, Oviedo University Press, vol. 5(1), pages 1-9.
    20. Declan French, 2012. "Causation between health and income: a need to panic," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 42(2), pages 583-601, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    OOP healthcare expenditures; Macroeconomy; Public health financing; PHI; Panel data analysis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I13 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Insurance, Public and Private
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:jpolmo:v:40:y:2018:i:6:p:1290-1312. 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 (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505735 .

    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.