The Correlation between Economic Convergence and Health Indices in Developed Countries
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Abstract
Background: Economic convergence signifies diminishing income disparities among global or regional economies and their eventual disappearance. It is also linked to economic growth and key health indicators. We aimed to assess the association between economic convergence and key health indicators in developed countries called G7 (USA, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, and Canada).
Methods: We examined G7 health and economic indicators from 2000 to 2021 using panel data analysis. We compared balanced and unbalanced panel datasets to address missing data and applied suitable methods to handle missing health indicators.
Results: Little's MCAR test confirmed random missing data in the unbalanced panel, enabling us to impute missing values as missing observations were below 5%. Unit root tests on balanced and unbalanced panel data validated the health convergence hypothesis, showing no unit roots in economic growth rate, current health expenditure, and female and male population indicators (P<0.05). Interestingly, the hypothesis for hospital bed counts in the unbalanced panel, differing from the balanced panel, offers new insights into addressing incomplete health data.
Conclusion: While G7 have economic similarities, their health indicators diverge (excluding hospital bed counts). Variations in health indicators stem from healthcare system structures, funding mechanisms, resource allocation, and health investments, even among economies of similar size. Therefore, G7 member states should develop tailored national health policies based on their specific circumstances and priorities, utilizing economic convergence data for effective health resource planning.
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40. Nahar S, Inder B (2002). Testing conver-gence in economic growth for OECD countries. Appl Econ,34(16):2011-2022.
41. Saroha J (2018). Types and significance of population pyramids. Worldwide. Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Development, 4(4):59-69.
42. Kashnitsky I, De Beer J, Van Wissen L (2020). Economic convergence in ageing Europe. J Econ Human Geogr, 111(1),28-44.
43. Sachs JD, Kroll C, Lafortune G, et al (2021). Sustainable development report 2021: The decade of action for the sustainable development goals. University of Cam-bridge, United Kingdom. https://s3.amazonaws.com/sustainabledevelopment.report/2021/2021-sustainable-development-report.pdf
44. Nakatani H (2016). Global strategies for the prevention and control of infectious diseases and non-communicable diseas-es. J Epidemiol,26(4):171-178.
45. Loş N. Comparative analysis of health ser-vices and health expenditures in health economics framework: In case of OECD countries and Turkey [PhD the-sis]. Institute of Social Sciences, Univer-sity of İstanbul, Türkiye; 2016.
46. Song C, Wang Y, Yang X, et al (2020). Spa-tial and temporal impacts of socioeco-nomic and environmental factors on healthcare resources: A county-level bayesian local spatiotemporal regres-sion modeling study of hospital beds in Southwest China. Int J Environ Res Public Health,17(16):5890.
47. Liang D, Zhang D, Huang J, et al (2016). Does rapid and sustained economic growth lead to convergence in health resources: The case of China from 1980 to 2010. Inquıry, 53:0046958016631699.
2. Gächter M, Theurl E (2011). Health status convergence at the local level: Empiri-cal evidence from Austria. Int J Equity Health,10:34.
3. Jakovljevic M, Timofeyev Y, Ranabhat CL, et al (2020). Real GDP growth rates and healthcare spending – comparison be-tween the G7 and the EM7 countries. Global Health,16(1):64.
4. Kızılkaya F, Dağ M (2021). Convergence of health expenditures in OECD countries: Evidence from Fourier unit root test with break. Journal of Yasar Universi-ty,16(62):587-600.
5. Hitiris T (1997). Health care expenditure and integration in the countries of the European Union. Appl Econ,29(1):1-6.
6. Atilgan E, Kilic D, Ertugrul HM (2017). The dynamic relationship between health expenditure and economic growth: Is the health-led growth hypothesis valid for Turkey? Eur J Health Econ,18:567-574.
7. Ayhan F, Kartal MT, Kılıç Depren S et al, (2023). Asymmetric effect of economic policy uncertainty, political stability, en-ergy consumption, and economic growth on CO2 emissions: Evidence from G-7 countries. Environ Sci Pollut Res,30(16):47422-47437.
8. Millar L (2021). G7 global fund commit-ments, compliance and financial con-tributions, 2001-2021. University of To-ronto, Canada. http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/evaluations/millar-global-fund.html#top
9. Çelik EU, Omay T, Tuzlukaya Ş (2022). Testing health expenditure convergence in 21 OECD countries by using nonlin-ear unit root tests. Konuralp Medical Jour-nal,14(S1):192-205.
10. Albulescu CT (2022). Health care expendi-ture in the European Union countries: New insights about the convergence process. Int J Environ Res Public Health,19(4):1991.
11. Şahin D (2018). Convergence of health in Turkey and MENA countries: Panel unit root test. Karadeniz Technical University So-cial Sciences Institute Journal of Social Scienc-es,8(16):235-252.
12. Serdar Y (2020). The relationship between health expenditures and economic growth in G7 countries. Journal of Statis-tics & Applied Science,1(1):23-39.
13. World Bank (2023). Health nutrition and population statistics. https://databank.worldbank.org/
14. Kelly S (2011). Do homes that are more energy efficient consume less energy? A structural equation model of the English residential sector. Energy,36(9):5610-5620.
15. Osman MS, Abu-Mahfouz AM, Page PR (2018). A survey on data imputation techniques: Water distribution system as a use case. IEEE Access,6:63279-63291.
16. Pesaran MH (2021). General diagnostic tests for cross-sectional dependence in panels. Empirical Economics,60(1):13-50.
17. Im KS, Pesaran MH, Shin Y (2003). Testing for unit roots in heterogeneous panels. Journal of Econometrics, 115(1):53-74.
18. Levin A, Lin CF, Chu CS (2002). Unit root tests in panel data: Asymptotic and fi-nite-sample properties. Journal of Econo-metrics,108(1):1-24.
19. Pesaran MH (2007). A simple panel unit root test in the presence of cross-section dependence. J Appl Econ, 22(2):265-312.
20. Baltagi BH (2005). Econometric analysis of panel data. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
21. Tian XL, Bélaïd F, Ahmad N (2021). Ex-ploring the nexus between tourism de-velopment and environmental quality: Role of renewable energy consumption and income. Struct Chang Econ,56:53-63.
22. Sezgin V (2022). Exploring a scientific re-search methodology in social sciences: Steps for analyzing non-stationary het-erogeneous panel data. AYBU Business Journal,2(1):10-22.
23. Little RJA, Rubin DR (2002). Statistical analy-sis with missing data. New York: Wiley.
24. Nixon J (2000). Convergence of health care spend-ing and health outcomes in the European Un-ion, 1960-95. University of York, Centre for Health Economics, Discussion Pa-per 183.
25. Tülümce S, Zeren F (2013). Convergence analysis of health in the OECD coun-tries: Panel unit root test. Suleyman Demirel University The Journal of Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences,18(2):287-300.
26. Goli S, Moradhvaj, Chakravorty S, et al (2019). World health status 1950-2015: Converging or diverging. PLoS One,14(3):e0213139.
27. Bailey ZD, Krieger N, Agénor M, et al (2017). Structural racism and health in-equities in the USA: Evidence and inter-ventions. Lancet,389(10077):1453-1463.
28. Miller CE, Vasan RS (2021). The southern rural health and mortality penalty: A re-view of regional health inequities in the United States. Soc Sci Med,268:113443.
29. Hitiris T, Nixon J (2001). Convergence of health care expenditure in the EU coun-tries. Applied Economics Letters, 8(4):223-228.
30. Albulescu C, Oros C, Tiwari AK (2017). Is there any convergence in health ex-penditures across EU countries? Econ Bull, 37(3):2095-2101.
31. Atılgan D, Özbek S (2021). The validity of the conversion of health hypothesis in G7 countries: Evidence from panel unit root tests. Journal of Economics, Business and Finance Studies, 3(3):231-242.
32. OECD (2022). Understanding differences in health expenditure between the Unit-ed States and OECD countries. https://www.oecd.org/health/Health-expenditure-differences-USA-OECD-countries-Brief-July-2022.pdf
33. Lorenzoni, L, Dougherty S (2022). Under-standing differences in health care spending: A comparative study of prices and volumes across OECD countries. Health Serv Insights,15: 11786329221109755.
34. Panopoulou E, Pantelidis T (2012). Conver-gence in per capita health expenditures and health outcomes in the OECD countries. Appl Econ,44(30):3909-3920.
35. Dickman SL, Himmelstein DU, Wool-handler S (2017). Inequality and the health-care system in the USA. Lan-cet,389(10077):1431-1441.
36. Roderick P, Pollock AM (2022). Disman-tling the National Health Service in England. Int J Health Serv,52(4):470-479.
37. Şahin K, Cezlan EÇ (2023). Comparison of health indicators and health financing models of OECD countries. Hacettepe University Journal of Economics and Adminis-trative Sciences,41(1):44-61.
38. Jackson JK (2021). Global economic ef-fects of COVID-19. Congressional Re-search Service. https://sgp.fas.org/crs/row/R46270.pdf
39. Meligkotsidou L, Tzavalis E, Vrontos ID (2012). A Bayesian panel data framework for examining the economic growth convergence hypothesis: Do the G7 countries converge? Journal of Applied Sta-tistics, 39(9):1975-1990.
40. Nahar S, Inder B (2002). Testing conver-gence in economic growth for OECD countries. Appl Econ,34(16):2011-2022.
41. Saroha J (2018). Types and significance of population pyramids. Worldwide. Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Development, 4(4):59-69.
42. Kashnitsky I, De Beer J, Van Wissen L (2020). Economic convergence in ageing Europe. J Econ Human Geogr, 111(1),28-44.
43. Sachs JD, Kroll C, Lafortune G, et al (2021). Sustainable development report 2021: The decade of action for the sustainable development goals. University of Cam-bridge, United Kingdom. https://s3.amazonaws.com/sustainabledevelopment.report/2021/2021-sustainable-development-report.pdf
44. Nakatani H (2016). Global strategies for the prevention and control of infectious diseases and non-communicable diseas-es. J Epidemiol,26(4):171-178.
45. Loş N. Comparative analysis of health ser-vices and health expenditures in health economics framework: In case of OECD countries and Turkey [PhD the-sis]. Institute of Social Sciences, Univer-sity of İstanbul, Türkiye; 2016.
46. Song C, Wang Y, Yang X, et al (2020). Spa-tial and temporal impacts of socioeco-nomic and environmental factors on healthcare resources: A county-level bayesian local spatiotemporal regres-sion modeling study of hospital beds in Southwest China. Int J Environ Res Public Health,17(16):5890.
47. Liang D, Zhang D, Huang J, et al (2016). Does rapid and sustained economic growth lead to convergence in health resources: The case of China from 1980 to 2010. Inquıry, 53:0046958016631699.
| Files | ||
| Issue | Vol 53 No 1 (2024) | |
| Section | Original Article(s) | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.18502/ijph.v53i1.14691 | |
| Keywords | ||
| Economic convergence Health key indicators Panel unit root | ||
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How to Cite
1.
MUTLU H, BOZKURT G, TÜRKOĞLU M. The Correlation between Economic Convergence and Health Indices in Developed Countries. Iran J Public Health. 2024;53(1):145-156.
