Health care expenditure and environmental pollution: a cross-country comparison across different income groups

This paper investigates the long-run dynamics between health care expenditure and environmental pollution across four global income groups. The analysis uses data from 178 countries, spanning the period 1995–2017. Panel estimations are employed with unobserved heterogeneity, temporal persistence, and cross-sectional dependence using a model with common correlated effects. The findings document that the health care expenditure is a necessity for all sub-groups. We established that a 1% increase in national income increased health expenditure by 7.2% in the full sample, and 9.3%, 8.6%, 6.8% and 2.9% for low, low-middle, upper-middle and high-income groups, respectively, while a 1% increase in CO2 emissions increased health expenditure by 2.5% in the full sample, and 2.9%, 1.2%, 2.3% and 2.6% across these four income groups. We recommend that coordinated approach is needed in setting policy goals both in energy and health sectors in mitigating the negative effects of pollution. Our findings indicate that low-carbon emissions and energy efficient health care services will significantly reduce future health care expenses.

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