The relationship between healthcare expenditure, CO₂ emissions and natural resources: evidence from developing countries

ABSTRACT

The paper examines the association between health expenditure, carbon emission, economic growth, natural resources, and population in developing countries for 2000–2018. It further explores the relationship between these variables over the same period. The study applied Pooled mean group (PMG) and Dynamic ordinary least square (DOLS) estimations to explore the long and short-term impact of environmental pollution, economic growth, and natural resources on health expenditure. PMG and the DOLS results show that economic growth and environmental pollution, and natural resources increase health expenditure at the panel level. However, improved sanitation reduces health spending. The findings for the individual country level from the FMOLS confirmed similar results for some countries. Furthermore, there is bidirectional causality between health spending and economic growth. Developing nations should implement strategic environment management policies that enhanced clean and healthy air to decrease the pressure on health care expenses.

KEYWORDS:

• Healthcare expenditure
• carbon emission
• natural resources
• Pooled mean group (PMG) and developing countries

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical approval

No ethical approval was required for this study because it was based on secondary analysis of data obtained from the World Bank Development Indicators and the World Health Organization database.

Data availability statement

The data used to support the findings and conclusions of this study was extracted from World Bank World Development Indicator WDI (2019) under license and copyright of World Bank World Development Indicators. Requests for access to these data can be made to World Bank World Development Indicator WDI (2019) http://datatopics.worldbank.org/world-development-indicators/

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Research on the Construction and Support Strategy of Value-Oriented Outpatient Security Payment Model for Chronic Diseases [grant number: 71974079].