Corruption and health expenditure in Italy

Abstract

The vulnerability of health sector to corruption lies in the complex interaction between the social environment and the institutional setting of health systems. We investigate this interaction in the case of Italy, speci�cally looking at the impact of corruption on health expenditure. In Italy corruption is a social phenomenon. Health sector has been often involved in corruption o¤ences and decentralized health expenditure is considerably out of control. We show that the impact of corruption on health expenditure is positive, along with ageing population, technological change and supply factors inducing demand in pharmaceuticals and hospitalization. Moreover, the empirical analysis demonstrates that corruption a¤ects pharmaceutical expenditure and accredited private hospital expenditure, suggesting implications for health governance and policy