Développement de l'assurance, dépenses de santé et croissance économique dans les pays de l'OCDE: Nouvelle approche de causalité en panel[Insurance Development, Health Expenditure and Economic Growth in the OECD Countries: New insights from a Panel Causality Approach]

The aim of this article is to examine the effects of insurance development on health expenditure and economic growth for 31 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries covering the period 1995-2015, using a panel causality approach. We also tested the causal effect of national income and population density on health expenditure. The results confirm that, over the long term, insurance factors, national income and population density exhibit positive and statistically significant effects on health expenditure. The results also confirm that the insurance factor has greater income effects than the substitution effects on health expenditure. Regarding the short-term causality, the empirical results show that economic growth strengthens growth in health expenditure, while growth in insurance reduces growth in health expenditure. In the short term, the insurance factor produces crowded-out effects. The foregoing outcomes provide policy implications that governments should take into account the crowded short-term effects of private insurance sections on health expenditure when developing fiscal policies related to health expenditure.