This thesis aims to reveal the magnitude of the income elasticity of health expenditure and the impact of non-income determinants of health expenditures in the Canadian Provinces. Health can be seen as a luxury good if the income elasticity exceeds unity and as a necessity good if the income elasticity is below unity. The motivation behind the analysis of the determinants of health spending is to identify the forces that drive the persistent increase in health expenditures in Canada and to explain the disparities in provincial health expenditures, thereby to prescribe sustainable macroeconomic policies regarding health spending. Panel data on real per capita GDP, relative price of health care, the share of publicly funded health expenditure, the share of senior population and life expectancy at birth have been used to investigate the determinants of Canadian real per capita provincial total, private and government health expenditures for the period 1975-2002. Dynamic models of health expenditure are analyzed via Generalized Instrumental Variables and Generalized Method of Moments techniques. Evidence confirms that health is far from being a luxury for Canada and government health expenditures are constrained by the relative prices. Results also cast doubt upon the power of quantitative analysis in explaining the increasing health expenditures.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:USASK/oai:usask.ca:etd-07282004-180738 |
| Date | 09 August 2004 |
| Creators | Bilgel, Firat |
| Contributors | Nolan, James F., Gilchrist, Donald, Beck, Glen, Altman, Morris, Tran, Kien C. |
| Publisher | University of Saskatchewan |
| Source Sets | University of Saskatchewan Library |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://library.usask.ca/theses/available/etd-07282004-180738/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Saskatchewan or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
Page generated in 0.0018 seconds