Relations between health care expenditure and income: an application of local quantile regressions
Relations between health care expenditure and income: an application of local quantile regressions
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DOI：
10.1080/13504850601018114
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发表时间：
2009-01-01
影响因子：
1.6
通讯作者：
Chang, C. -K.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Chen, M. -Y.;Lin, F. -L.;Chang, C. -K.
本文采用局部分位数回归方法，对我国人均卫生支出与GDP的局部关系进行了研究。考虑了2001年154个国家的人均GDP和HCE的对数以及25%、50%和75%分位数回归。从我们的实证研究中得到三个主要发现。首先，人均HCE在GDP中的条件分布是不对称的。对于国内生产总值较低的国家，条件分布向右倾斜，这意味着消费的医疗保健往往较少。相反，条件分布向左倾斜，这意味着高GDP国家倾向于消费更多的医疗保健。第二，当人均GDP较低时，条件分布的方差较大，而当人均GDP较高时，条件分布的方差较小。这证实了有必要将样本观察限制在OECD国家，以便在考虑条件平均值时保持HCE的同质性。第三，医疗保健是“必需品”还是“奢侈品”，取决于人均GDP的水平。对于50%分位数，当人均GDP大于1882美元时，收入弹性显著> 1（ln（1882）=7.56），这表明对于人均GDP高于1882美元的国家，医疗保健成为奢侈品。对于75%分位数，弹性明显大于1，在人均国内生产总值高于1 737美元的国家，医疗保健成为奢侈品（ln（1737）=7.46）。对于25%分位数，弹性显著大于1，人均GDP高于1920美元的国家，医疗保健成为奢侈品（ln（1920）=7.56）。这些结果表明，对于人均收入低于1920美元的37个国家来说，医疗保健是必需品，而对于其他国家来说则是奢侈品。
In this article, local relationship between per capita health care expenditure (HCE hereafter) and GDP is investigated with local quantile regressions. Logarithmic per capita GDP and HCE of 154 countries in 2001 and 25, 50 and 75% quantile regressions are considered. Three main findings are obtained from our empirical study. First, conditional distribution of per capita HCE on GDP is asymmetric. For lower GDP countries, the conditional distribution is skewed to the right which means less health care tends to be consumed. On the contrary, the conditional distribution is skewed to the left which implies more health care is apt to be consumed for high GDP countries. Second, variance of the conditional distribution is larger when per capita GDP is low and smaller when per capita GDP is high. This confirms the necessity of restricting the sample observations to OECD countries for holding the homogeneity of HCE when the conditional mean is considered. Third, whether health care is 'necessary' or 'luxury' depends on the level of per capita GDP. For 50% quantile, the income elasticity is significant > 1 when per capita GDP is greater than US$ 1882 (ln(1882)=7.56), which indicates that health care becomes luxury for countries with per capita GDP higher than US$ 1882. For 75% quantile, the elasticity is significantly > 1 and health care becomes luxury for countries with per capita GDP higher than US$ 1737 (ln(1737)=7.46). As to 25% quantile, the elasticity is significantly > 1 and health care becomes luxury for countries with per capita GDP higher than US$ 1920 (ln(1920)=7.56). These results indicate that health care is a necessity for 37 countries with per capita income lower than $ 1920 and is luxury for other countries.