Greenhouse gas emissions, economic globalization, and health expenditures nexus: does population aging matter in emerging market economies?

Papers on population aging and the effects of environmental quality on health expenditure have critical policy consequences. However, findings in the relevant literature are mixed, and papers generally focus on developed countries. To provide new information to the literature, this paper examines the impact of globalization, economic growth, greenhouse gas emissions, and population aging on health expenditures in emerging market economies with annual data for the period 2000 to 2018. The paper follows a second-generation advanced panel data method that considers cross-sectional dependency. The estimation results reveal that population aging, economic growth, and greenhouse gas emissions have an increasing effect on health expenditures, while globalization has a decreasing effect. Furthermore, one-way causality running from population aging to health expenditures is confirmed, while a feedback causality relationship is observed between health expenditures and other indicators (globalization, economic growth, and greenhouse gas emissions). After all, the outputs of this paper can provide critical policy implications about the relationships between aging, globalization, air quality, and health expenditures in developing countries.

The relationship between health expenditure indicators and economic growth in OECD countries: A Driscoll-Kraay approach.

Introduction: The main purpose of the study is to examine the relationship between health expenditure indicators and economic growth in OECD countries. Methods: In this context, health expenditures and economic indicators data of 21 OECD countries were analyzed by the Driscoll-Kraay standard error approach within the scope of panel data analysis. While Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and income per capita were used as dependent variables, the amount of out-of-pocket health spending, per capita health expenditure, the amount of public health expenditure, the ratio of drug expenditures to gross domestic product, the share of current health expenditures in GDP were used as independent variables. Results: According to the results, in the model (Model 1) where real GDP level was used as the dependent variable, all health expenditure indicators were positively related to the economic growth. When the estimation results of Model 1 are examined, it is predicted that there will be an increase of 0.09% in GDP in case of a 1% increase in the share allocated to health services from GDP. In case of a 1% increase in the amount of out-of-pocket spending on healthcare, it is foreseen that there may be an increase of 0.04% in the real GDP. In the model (Model 2) where the per capita income variable is the dependent variable, it is seen that the increase in out- of-pocket health spending has a decreasing effect on the per capita income level, while the increase in public expenditures has an increasing effect on the per capita income level. From the findings of Model 2, it was found that if a 1% increase in the share of current health expenditures in GDP, there may be an increase of 0.06% in the amount of per capita income. Discussion: Concludingly, it is possible to say that that public resources allocated to health services play an important role in the economic growth.

The impact of economic growth, energy consumption, trade openness, and financial development on carbon emissions: empirical evidence from Turkey.

This study examines the impact of economic growth, energy consumption, trade openness, financial development on carbon emissions for the case of Turkey by using annual time series data for the period of 1960-2013. The Lee and Strazicich test suggests that the variables are suitable for applying the bounds testing approach to cointegration. The cointegration analysis reveals that there exists a long-run relationship between the per capita real income, per capita energy consumption, trade openness, financial development, and per capita carbon emissions in the presence of structural breaks. The results show that in the long run, carbon emissions are mainly determined by economic growth, energy consumption, trade openness, and financial development. The VECM Granger causality analysis indicates a long-run unidirectional causality running from economic growth, energy consumption, trade openness, and financial development to carbon emissions. The findings also show that the EKC hypothesis is valid for Turkey both in the long run and short run. The study provides some implications for policy makers to decrease carbon emissions in Turkey.