Search results

The empirical analysis dealt in this paper emphasizes on the impact of military expenditures on out of pocket (OOP) healthcare payments. A sizeable body of defence economics literature has investigated the trade-off between military and public health expenditure, by testing the crowding-out or growth-stimulating hypothesis; does military expenditure scaling up crowd-out or promote governmental resources for social and welfare programs, including also state health financing?

In this study, panel data from 2000 to 2018 for 129 countries is used to examine the impact of military expenditure on OOP healthcare payments. The dataset of countries is categorized into four income-groups based on World Bank's income-group classification. Dynamic panel data methodology is applied to meet study objectives.

The findings of this study indicate that military expenditure positively affects OOP payments in all the selected groups of countries, strongly supporting in this way the crowding-out hypothesis whereby increased military expenditure reduces the public financing on health. Study econometric results are robust since different and alternative changes in specifications and samples are applied in our analysis.

Under the economic downturn backdrop for several economies in the previous decade and on the foreground of a potential limited governmental fiscal space related to the Covid-19 pandemic adverse economic effects, this study provides evidence that policy-makers have to adjust their government policy initiatives and prioritize Universal Health Coverage objectives. Consequently, the findings of this study reflect the necessity of governments as far as possible to moderate military expenditures and increase public financing on health in order to strengthen health care systems efficiency against households OOP spending for necessary healthcare utilization.

Despite the fact that a sizeable body of defence economics literature has extensively examined the impact of military spending on total and public health expenditures, nevertheless to the best of our knowledge there is no empirical evidence of any direct effect of national defence spending on the main private financing component of health systems globally; the OOP healthcare payments.

The provision of universal health care by the Portuguese NHS depends on the allocated government budget to health. Several reforms have been implemented over the last decades to improve access while ensuring the financial sustainability of the health care system. However, a practical and useable definition of public health sustainability is hard to find. We show that under two alternative definitions – both related to fiscal space and compliance with sound public finances – public health spending increase is limited. Our analysis indicates that public health spending growth levels below 3% can be financially sustainable.

Taking into account that financial sustainability is a function of economic growth and will depend on the level of control of other public spending, our forecast for long-run health spending growth is compatible with the financial sustainability targets defined.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether or not government health care spending reduces the poor‐rich differences in health status. Specifically, it aims to assess the health status of the poor vis‐à‐vis government health spending in Nigeria.

Regression analysis was carried out using the Ordinary Least Square method of estimation while secondary data was used.

It was found that despite the increase in most components of health care spending in Nigeria, the health status of the average Nigerian and the condition of health infrastructure has not improved appreciably. Also, the poor have significantly worse health status than the non‐poor and they (the poor) are more strongly affected by public spending on health care relative to the non‐poor. Thus, the difference in impact of spending between the poor and the non‐poor could be substantial.

This study provides information that will help reposition policies on government spending, especially on health care, so as to enhance and improve the heath status of the poor in Nigeria, thereby reducing the poor‐rich differences in health status.

This paper aims to analyze the relationship between public health spending and health outcome using time series data in Nigeria over the period 1980 to 2017, taking into account the role of governance by assessing how the quality of governance directly affects health status and indirectly as a mediator for the effectiveness of public health spending.

Using the Hausman statistical tests to check for the existence of endogeneity, the proper method for estimating the model for this study is the two-stage least square regression model. The two-stage least squares regression model addresses the problem of endogeneity using instrumental variables. The mediating role of governance on the effectiveness of public health spending on health was considered by an interaction of governance indicators with public health spending.

The results showed that public health spending had no significant effect on health outcome except when interacted with governance quality. The interaction of government health spending with governance effectiveness as well as that for control of corruption improved health by inducing a fall in maternal deaths, whereas government health expenditure interacted with rule of law raised maternal mortality. Public health spending interacted with regulatory quality improved life expectancy while that for political stability with public health spending induced a fall in life expectancy, poor maternal and infant health. Political stability and the control of corruption had direct influence on maternal health.

Given the predominance of public health spending in promoting access to health care and population health status for developing economies, the effectiveness of such spending should be top priority in policy makers’ agenda. This again is important because for developing economies, government revenue is generated from a small tax base due to their highly informal nature. To improve health status from public intervention in the health sector, there is indeed need for improvement in the overall state of governance in Nigeria.

This paper is one of the few country case studies which uses time series data to examine the role of governance on the efficacy of public health spending with extension of findings to maternal health and covering more measures of governance quality. The results fundamentally illuminate the importance of governance in fostering development in health and consequently enhancing economic development and growth.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how political regimes and political transition affect government decisions to allocate budgets to the public health sector in Southeast Asia.

Ordinary least squares with fixed-effects model is adopted to examine the effect of political regime on public health spending.

Examining the allocation of public health budgets in Southeast Asian countries, the paper finds that a democratic government positively leads to an increase in public health budget allocation, while autocratic government negatively affects the allocation of public health budgets. Further, political liberalization contributes to an increase in budget allocation to the public health sector.

Democratic politics and economic development aim to distribute public resources to social policy, such as policy on public health.

This article aims to relate investments in human capital to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), and examine the spending levels necessary to achieve high performance in related SDG sectors for Azerbaijan.

Employing data from the World Bank, the empirical approach undertaken in this study relies on peer analysis by examining spending levels for nations exhibiting similar income levels and geographical proximity to Azerbaijan.

This study estimates that total spending in education would need to increase by 0.4 percentage points of GDP by 2030, while total spending in health would need to increase by 5.9 percentage points of GDP by 2030 for Azerbaijan.

This study contributes to the literature by conducting an empirical analysis in which other nations can emulate in measuring their relative progress on human capital investments and related UN SDGs.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-02-2023-0137

This article describes structural developments of public expenditures in China in the past 30 years and demonstrates an increasing public's need for services in areas of education, health care, social security, and housing. Starting with a theory explaining the need to adjust the spending structure, the article specifies a proper proportion of public service expenditures in total governmental spending and discusses a possible path to this spending structure.

This chapter attempts to study the long-term determinants of public and private healthcare expenditure in Hong Kong, by employing time series data over the period from 1990 to 2017. We find that income is not a determinant of either public or private spending per capita on healthcare services. Rather, a higher proportion of elderly will raise public expenditure on health and private spending even more. The share of children within the population will conversely decrease both public and private spending. Results also show that the rising density of doctors decreases both public and private per capita healthcare spending, showing that the supplier-induced demand problem is not an issue in Hong Kong.

This paper offers an overview of the defining traits of the Spanish National Health Service (Sistema Nacional de Salud, in Spanish), as well as an account of its current trends in both spending and organisational changes. Beyond a thorough description of the Spanish public health-care system and its main quantitative indicators, we offer a critical review of the ongoing decentralisation process of health-care provision and its recent trends in pharmaceutical spending.

The text is organised in the following two parts. Part 1 provides an overview of the Spanish health-care system, structured in several sections. It starts by placing Spain within a classification of international health-care systems and is followed by an account of the importance of public provision in the Spanish case. A relation of the guiding principles of the Spanish public system concludes the first part. The second part focuses on two key developments that have shaped the evolution of the Spanish health-care system in the recent decades. The first is the process of decentralisation of health-care; the section explains the challenges arising with the transference of health-care provision responsibilities from the central to regional governments. The second section critically reviews the recent expansion of drug-related spending in the Spanish health-care system, and the policy responses to attempt to contain health-care costs.