Browsing by Author "Antonsson, Elin"

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Offentliga hälsoutgifter och hälsoutveckling: Har utvecklingsnivån någon betydelse?
(2017-07-03) Antonsson, Elin; Gård, Caroline; University of Gothenburg/Department of Economics; Göteborgs universitet/Institutionen för nationalekonomi med statistik
The purpose of this thesis is to examine whether public health expenditures can improve the health situation of a country. We also analyse if the effect is different depending on the degree of human development. To do this we perform a panel data analysis with fixed effects over the period 2000-2014 and use data from 151 countries with different level of Human Development. We want to study the effect of public health expenditures on; child mortality, maternal mortality and life expectancy at birth. The results show support for that increasing public health expenditures can increase the health situation in a country. The effect is strongest in reducing child mortality. When controlling for level of corruption the support is strongest for countries with low Human Development Index (HDI). However, countries with low HDI are also those with highest level of corruption. Due to this and the fact that we find corruption to be a determinant of how effective the public health expenditures are, countries with low HDI do not catch up with the more developed countries as fast as they could have done if having lower level of corruption.
The Gothenburg congestion tax and air quality-A difference-in-difference analysis
(2019-10-02) Antonsson, Elin; Gård, Caroline; University of Gothenburg/Graduate School; Göteborgs universitet/Graduate School
Causing 300 premature deaths each year, the air quality is a major problem in Gothenburg. In 2013, the Gothenburg congestion tax was implemented with the goal to reduce congestion and improve the air quality in the city, as well as to finance investments in infrastructure. The aim with our study is to investigate if, and to what extent, the congestion tax has reduced air pollutants, with focus on nitrogen oxides (NOX) and particulate matter (PM10) concentrations. We analyse this by using a difference-in-difference approach where our control group is Malmö, a Swedish city without congestion tax. Since it is evident that meteorological conditions largely affect emission levels we control for wind speed and precipitation in our regressions. We find evidence that the implementation of the congestion tax was associated with reduced NOX as well as PM10 levels in Gothenburg with up to 17-19 %. Hence, we draw the conclusion that the implementation of the congestion tax had a general positive effect on the air quality in Gothenburg.