Health care expenditure disparities in the European Union and underlying factors: a distribution dynamics approach

This paper examines health care expenditure (HCE) disparities between the European Union countries over the period 1995-2010. By means of using a continuous version of the distribution dynamics approach, the key conclusions are that the reduction in disparities is very weak and, therefore, persistence is the main characteristic of the HCE distribution. In view of these findings, a preliminary attempt is made to add some insights into potentially main factors behind the HCE distribution. The results indicate that whereas per capita income is by far the main determinant, the dependency ratio and female labour participation do not play any role in explaining the HCE distribution; as for the rest of the factors studied (life expectancy, infant mortality, R&D expenditure and public HCE expenditure share), we find that their role falls somewhat in between

Evolving Health Expenditure Landscape of the BRICS Nations and Projections to 2025

Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Global health spending share of low/middle income countries continues its long-term growth. BRICS nations remain to be major drivers of such change since 1990s. Governmental, private and out-of-pocket health expenditures were analyzed based on WHO sources. Medium-term projections of national health spending to 2025 were provided based on macroeconomic budgetary excess growth model. In terms of per capita spending Russia was highest in 2013. India's health expenditure did not match overall economic growth and fell to slightly less than 4% of GDP. Up to 2025 China will achieve highest excess growth rate of 2% and increase its GDP% spent on health care from 5.4% in 2012 to 6.6% in 2025. Russia's spending will remain highest among BRICS in absolute per capita terms reaching net gain from $1523 PPP in 2012 to$2214 PPP in 2025. In spite of BRICS' diversity, all countries were able to significantly increase their investments in health care. The major setback was bold rise in out-of-pocket spending. Most of BRICS' growing share of global medical spending was heavily attributable to the overachievement of People's Republic of China. Such trend is highly likely to continue beyond 2025. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd