L'elasticit? rispetto al reddito della spesa privata per cure mediche in Italia: un'analisi empirica

L?elasticit? rispetto al reddito della spesa privata per cure mediche in Italia: un?analisi empirica (di Michele Limosani e Pietro Navarra) - ABSTRACT: The existing literature studying the income elasticity of health care spending has dealt with two main issues: the lack of attention to the time-series structure of the data and the distinction between the impact of an autonomous deterministic trend upon real expenditure of health care and the growth of real per capita income. We use Italian regional data to estimate the income elasticity of the demand for private health care. By adopting a technique designed to cope with the above two issues, the results of our analysis suggest that the trend is a statistically significant variable to be included amongst the determinants of health care spending and that it produces an impact independent of the effect of real income. Furthermore, our results show that both in the Northern and Central Italian regions the income elasticity is approximately lower than one and substantially less than the estimated values reported in other studies. On the other hand, in the Southern area health care expenditure presents the characteristics of a luxury good and the long-run elasticity is greater than one independent of the effect of the trend. We provide also an explanation of these findings.