Browsing by Author "Capule, Haydee"

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    The impact of public health spending on growth: a cross-country study
    (2005-03) Capule, Haydee; Talledo, Harold Christian S.; Alburo, Florian
    This paper determines the impact of public health spending (as a percentage of total government expenditure) on economic growth as measured by gross domestic product (GDP) in 78 countries worldwide, taken from the year 2001. The framework used is modified Solow model that incorporates investment in physical capital as measured by Gross Capital Formation, and human capital as measured by health outcomes (life expectancy, infant and under-five (child) mortality). Empirical findings show that the effect of public health spending on health outcomes are positive, but of little significance. A small amount of research on the impact of the outcomes on growth reveals that the evidence of viewing health as one of the more effective arrows in the development is growing stronger. Econometric analysis shows that there is indeed a positive and significant impact of public health spending on the chosen measures of health status. However, empirical results show that there exists an inverse relationship between the chosen health outcomes and economic growth. This does not imply, though, that the literature is invalidated. This could be explained by the possibility that since the chosen value for public health spending is an aggregate of different health components, the impact may be indirect, that is, it goes through other channels that are not specified in this paper for they may be unobservable or immeasurable.