Pharmaceutical expenditure and gross domestic product: Evidence of simultaneous effects using a two‐step instrumental variables strategy

This paper estimates the income elasticity of government pharmaceutical spending and assesses the simultaneous effect of such spending on gross domestic product (GDP). Using a panel dataset for 136 countries from 1995 to 2006, we employ a two‐step instrumental variable procedure where we first estimate the effect of GDP on public pharmaceutical expenditure using tourist receipts as an instrument for GDP. In the second step, we construct an adjusted pharmaceutical expenditure series where the response of public pharmaceutical expenditure to GDP is partialled out and use this endogeneity adjusted series as an instrument for pharmaceutical expenditure. Our estimations show that GDP has a strong positive impact on pharmaceutical spending with elasticity in excess of unity in countries with low spending on pharmaceuticals and countries with large economic freedom. In the second step, we find that when the quantitatively large reverse effect of GDP is accounted for, public pharmaceutical spending has a negative effect on GDP per capita particularly in countries with limited economic freedom.     

Pure,White and Deadly… Expensive: A Bitter Sweetness in Health Care Expenditure

This paper analyses the impact of sugar availability/intake on diabetes expenditure and on total health care expenditure. Building this macroeconomic analysis upon the literature on the determinants of health care expenditure, we estimate a dynamic panel data model over a sample of 156 countries for the period 1995–2014. After controlling for the traditional determinants of health care spending, we find that an increase in sugar availability/intake leads to a significant rise in diabetes expenditure (per capita and per diabetic) and in the growth rate of total health care expenditure per capita. Moreover, we show that this causal relation is present in both developed and developing countries. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

GENERAL BUDGET SUPPORT: HAS IT BENEFITED THE HEALTH SECTOR?

There has been recent controversy about whether aid directed specifically to health has caused recipient governments to reallocate their own funds to non‐health areas. At the same time, general budget support (GBS) has been increasing. GBS allows governments to set their own priorities, but little is known about how these additional resources are subsequently used. This paper uses cross‐country panel data to assess the impact of GBS programmes on health spending in low‐income and middle‐income countries, using dynamic panel techniques to estimate unbiased coefficients in the presence of serial correlation. We found no clear evidence that GBS had any impact, positive or negative, on government health spending derived from domestic sources. GBS also had no observed impact on total government health spending from all sources (external as well as domestic). In contrast, health‐specific aid was associated with a decline in health expenditures from domestic sources, but there was not a full substitution effect. That is, despite this observed fungibility, health‐specific aid still increases total government health spending from all sources. Finally, increases in total government expenditure led to substantial increases in domestic government health expenditures. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Health care financing and utilization of maternal health services in developing countries

BACKGROUND: The Millennium Development Goals call for a 75% reduction in maternal mortality between 1990 and 2015. Skilled birth attendance and emergency obstetric care, including Caesarean section, are two of the most important interventions to reduce maternal mortality. Although international pressure is rising to increase donor assistance for essential health services in developing countries, we know less about whether government or the private sector is more effective at financing these essential services in developing countries. METHODS: We conducted a cross-national analysis to determine the association between government versus private financing of health services and utilization of antenatal care, skilled birth attendants and Caesarean section in 42 low-income and lower-middle-income countries. We controlled for possible confounding effects of total per capita health spending and female literacy. FINDINGS: In multivariable analysis, adjusting for confounders, government health expenditure as a percentage of total health expenditure is significantly associated with utilization of skilled birth attendants (P = 0.05) and Caesarean section (P = 0.01) but not antenatal care. Total health expenditure is also significantly associated with utilization of skilled birth attendants (P < 0.01) and Caesarean section (P < 0.01). DISCUSSION: Greater government participation in health financing and higher levels of health spending are associated with increased utilization of two maternal health services: skilled birth attendants and Caesarean section. While government financing is associated with better access to some essential maternal health services, greater absolute levels of health spending will be required if developing countries are to achieve the Millennium Development Goal on maternal mortality.     

Machines that Go ‘Ping’: Medical Technology and Health Expenditures in OECD Countries

Technology is believed to be a major determinant of increasing health spending. The main difficulty to quantify its effect is to find suitable proxies to measure medical technological innovation. This paper's main contribution is the use of data on approved medical devices and drugs to proxy for medical technology. The effects of these variables on total real per capita health spending are estimated using a panel model for 18 Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) countries covering the period 1981–2012. The results confirm the substantial cost‐increasing effect of medical technology, which accounts for almost 50% of the explained historical growth of spending. Despite the overall net positive effect of technology, the effect of two subgroups of approvals on expenditure is significantly negative. These subgroups can be thought of as representing ‘incremental medical innovation’, whereas the positive effects are related to radically innovative pharmaceutical products and devices. A separate time series model was estimated for the USA because the FDA approval data in fact only apply to the USA, while they serve as proxies for the other OECD countries. Our empirical model includes an indicator of obesity, and estimations confirm the substantial contribution of this lifestyle variable to health spending growth in the countries studied. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Evolving Health Expenditure Landscape of the BRICS Nations and Projections to 2025

Global health spending share of low/middle income countries continues its long‐term growth. BRICS nations remain to be major drivers of such change since 1990s. Governmental, private and out‐of‐pocket health expenditures were analyzed based on WHO sources. Medium‐term projections of national health spending to 2025 were provided based on macroeconomic budgetary excess growth model. In terms of per capita spending Russia was highest in 2013. India's health expenditure did not match overall economic growth and fell to slightly less than 4% of GDP. Up to 2025 China will achieve highest excess growth rate of 2% and increase its GDP% spent on health care from 5.4% in 2012 to 6.6% in 2025. Russia's spending will remain highest among BRICS in absolute per capita terms reaching net gain from $1523 PPP in 2012 to $2214 PPP in 2025. In spite of BRICS' diversity, all countries were able to significantly increase their investments in health care. The major setback was bold rise in out‐of‐pocket spending. Most of BRICS' growing share of global medical spending was heavily attributable to the overachievement of People's Republic of China. Such trend is highly likely to continue beyond 2025. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Technology as a 'major driver' of health care costs: a cointegration analysis of the Newhouse conjecture

Per capita real income on the demand-side and technological change, proxied by total R&D and health R&D spending, on the supply-side are hypothesized as major drivers of per capita real health care expenditure in the US during the 1960-1997 period. The findings are robust to a battery of unit root and cointegration tests. They support the Newhouse [Journal of Economic Perspectives 6 (1992) 3] conjecture that technological change is a major escalator of health care expenditure and confirm a significant and stable long-run relationship among per capita real health care expenditure, per capita real income and broad-based R&D expenditures. Policy implications are noted.     

Income Elasticity of Vaccines Spending versus General Healthcare Spending

Using cross‐country data on gross domestic product and national expenditure on vaccines, we estimate and compare the income elasticity of vaccine expenditure and general curative healthcare expenditure. This study provides the first evidence on the national income elasticity of vaccination spending. Both fixed and random effects models are applied to data from 84 countries from 2010 to 2011. The income elasticities for healthcare expenditure and vaccine expenditure are 0.844 and 0.336, respectively. Despite vaccines' high cost‐effectiveness, the national propensity to spend income on vaccines as income increases lags behind general health care. The low income elasticity of vaccine spending means that relying on economic growth alone will provide an unacceptably slow trajectory to achieving high vaccine coverage levels. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The determinants of health‐care expenditure: new results from semiparametric estimation

Recent cross‐country studies have questioned the existence of a systematic relationship between per capita health‐care expenditure (HCE) and explanatory variables such as income, population ageing and total public expenditure. We reexamine this issue mainly focussing at a flexible semiparametric estimation method that allows the parameters of the model to depend on a state variable. Using the age structure of the population as the state variable, we find that the income elasticity increases with population ageing, while other explanatory variables are not significantly influenced by it. Additionally we find that the HCE relationship becomes more and more unstable in ageing economies. These results explain the difficulty to identify both the influence of population ageing and income on HCE in previous studies. Furthermore they indicate that international convergence of HCE across countries crucially depends on the convergence of the population age structure. We also discuss the policy implications of our results regarding the design of a fair health‐care financing system and the evolution of HCE to avoid budgetary problems. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Basic patterns in national health expenditure

Analysed in this paper are national health accounts estimates for 191 WHO Member States for 1997, using simple comparisons and linear regressions to describe spending on health and how it is financed. The data cover all sources - out-of-pocket spending, social insurance contributions, financing from government general revenues and voluntary and employment-related private insurance - classified according to their completeness and reliability. Total health spending rises from around 2-3% of gross domestic product (GDP) at low incomes (< 1000 US dollars per capita) to typically 8-9% at high incomes (> 7000 US dollars). Surprisingly, there is as much relative variation in the share for poor countries as for rich ones, and even more relative variation in amounts in US dollars. Poor countries and poor people that most need protection from financial catastrophe are the least protected by any form of prepayment or risk-sharing. At low incomes, out-of-pocket spending is high on average and varies from 20-80% of the total; at high incomes that share drops sharply and the variation narrows. Absolute out-of-pocket expenditure nonetheless increases with income. Public financing increases faster, and as a share of GDP, and converges at high incomes. Health takes an increasing share of total public expenditure as income rises, from 5-6% to around 10%. This is arguably the opposite of the relation between total health needs and need for public spending, for any given combination of services. Within public spending, there is no convergence in the type of finance - general revenue versus social insurance. Private insurance is usually insignificant except in some rich countries.     

安徽省卫生总费用筹资来源测算结果分析

利用卫生总费用筹资来源法对安徽省卫生总费用进行测算。结果表明：1995－1998年间安徽省卫生总费用快速增长,且快于国民经济的增长幅度,政府预算卫生支出和社会卫生支出所占比例逐年下降,政府财政支出增长率快于政府预算卫生支出增长率;城乡居民个人卫生支出比例逐年上升,城乡居民个人卫生支出增长明显快于人均收入和人均生活消费支出的增长。建议控制过快增长的卫生总费用,降低居民个人医疗费用负担,加大政府卫生投入,完善卫生总费用核算体系。     

The determinants of the public-private mix in Canadian health care expenditures: 1975-1996

The health care policy issue regarding the balance between public and private health spending is examined. An empirical model of the determinants of the public-private mix in Canadian health care expenditures over the period 1975-1996 is estimated for total health care expenditures as well as separate expenditure categories such as hospitals, physicians and drugs. The results find that the key determinants of the split are per capita income, government transfer variables and the share of individual income held by the top quintile of the income distribution. Much of the public-private split is determined by long term economic forces. However, the importance of the federal health transfer variables and the variables representing shifts in fiscal transfer regimes suggest the increase in the private share of health spending since 1975 is also partly the result of the policy choice to reduce federal health transfers.     

我国卫生总费用筹资的结构性特征与人均可支配收入的比较分析

本文依据我国2003—2015年卫生总费用的基础数据,比较新医改前后卫生总费用筹资的结构性特征与人均可支配收入的变化,分析了新医改前后卫生总费用筹资的总体水平、筹资结构变化的合理性、总体发展趋势的可持续性及其与人均可支配收入的发展变动特征。研究发现,新医改之后我国卫生总费用增长率虽有所下降,但个人卫生支出增长率仍呈上升趋势,政府医疗保障支出的增长对个人卫生支出的替代水平有限,人均个人卫生支出增长率超过城乡居民人均收入增长率,"看病贵"问题仍然非常突出。针对以上问题,本文提出加快公立医院改革,强化医保基金专业化建设,提高医保基金控费能力等建议。     

经济增长背景下政府与个人卫生支出划分的国际经验与中国现状

目的：促进我国政府与个人卫生费用支出分担比例的合理化.方法：以世界卫生组织100多个成员国的数据为基础,采用回归分析方法,探寻经济发展水平与卫生支出以及政府与个人卫生支出分担比例的发展规律.结果：从世界范围来看,人均卫生总费用和人均政府卫生支出的需求收入弹性均大于1,人均个人卫生支出的需求收入弹性小于1.2000-2010年,中国人均卫生总费用、人均政府卫生支出的实际值都始终低于回归预测值.结论：“十二五”期间人均财政卫生支出的增长速度应达到10.2％左右,人均个人卫生支出的增长速度应达到7％.     

Health care expenditure and health outcome nexus: new evidence from the SAARC-ASEAN region

Background

The total health expenditure (as a percentage of GDP) and health outcomes in the region of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and Association for South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) are lower than that of the OECD region and the world. This study investigated the relationship between different types of healthcare expenditures (public, private and total) and three main health status outcomes - life expectancy at birth, crude death rate and infant mortality rate - in the region.

Methodology

Using the World Bank data set for 15 countries over a 20-year period (1995–2014), a panel data analysis was conducted where relevant fixed and random effect models were estimated to determine the effects of healthcare expenditure on health outcomes. The main variables studied were total health expenditure, public health expenditure, private health expenditure, GDP per capita, improved sanitation, life expectancy at birth, crude death rate and infant mortality rate.

Results

Total health expenditure, public health expenditure and private health expenditure significantly reduced infant mortality rates, and, the extent of effect of private health expenditure was greater than that of public health expenditure. Private health expenditure also had a significant role in reducing the crude death rate. Per capita income growth and improved sanitation facilities also had significant positive roles in improving population health in the region.

Conclusions

Health expenditure in the SAARC-ASEAN region should be increased as our results indicated that it improved the health status of the population in the region. Public sector health funds must be appropriately and efficiently used, and accountability and transparency regarding spending of public health funds should be ensured. Finally, government and private institutes should implement appropriate strategies to improve sanitation facilities.

     

基于门限效应模型的我国西部地区政府医疗卫生支出城乡差异分析*

目的：分析我国西部地区政府医疗卫生支出城乡间的具体差异,为西部地区政府在区域和城乡间医疗卫生支出的合理投入提供证据支持。方法：基于2009—2019年我国西部地区12省份的132个市区面板数据,采用固定效应模型和门限效应模型实证分析影响政府医疗卫生支出的因素。结果：人均GDP与农村居民收入是影响政府医疗卫生支出的主要因素,人均GDP 门限值分别为9.84和10.48、城镇居民收入门限值分别为9.73和10.13、农村居民收入门限值分别为8.67和9.22,而我国西部地区政府医疗卫生支出更偏向于经济发达地区的城镇居民和低收入群体中的农村居民。结论：我国西部地区政府医疗卫生支出在不同区域间和区域内城乡间存在显著差别,推动区域和城乡医疗卫生协调均衡发展需因地制宜、循序渐进的开展工作。     

The sustainability of public health expenditures: evidence from the Canadian federation

The fiscal sustainability of government health expenditures is defined as the gap between growth rates of spending and measures of the resource base. The results show that over the period 1965–2008, real per capita Canadian provincial government health spending has grown at rates that exceed growth in basic measures of the resource base such as per capita gross domestic product (GDP), per capita federal transfers and per capita provincial government revenues. Forecasts of future spending to 2035 using determinant regression and growth rate extrapolation techniques show that Canadian provincial government health spending is projected to continue rising in the future and its share of provincial GDP will rise. While the amount spent on health is ultimately a public policy choice, provincial government health spending also cannot continue growing faster than the resource base indefinitely.     

The income elasticity of health care spending in developing and developed countries

To date, international analyses on the strength of the relationship between country-level per capita income and per capita health expenditures have predominantly used developed countries’ data. This study expands this work using a panel data set for 173 countries for the 1995–2006 period. We found that health care has an income elasticity that qualifies it as a necessity good, which is consistent with results of the most recent studies. Furthermore, we found that health care spending is least responsive to changes in income in low-income countries and most responsive to in middle-income countries with high-income countries falling in the middle. Finally, we found that ‘Voice and Accountability’ as an indicator of good governance seems to play a role in mobilizing more funds for health.