Offentliga hälsoutgifter och hälsoutveckling: Har utvecklingsnivån någon betydelse?

Abstract

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.