A distribution dependence study on the impacts of public health expenditure on national health across countries using quantile-on-quantile method

Abstract

Public health expenditures (PHEs) within a reasonable range are a subject of current research, with discussions centered on how PHEs affect population health outcomes (PHOs). Nevertheless, due to the narrow range of variables used to measure health outcomes and the inadequacy of conditional mean models in identifying distribution dependence, people have not yet come to a consensus. We build a composite index to measure the PHOs in a comprehensive way, and we use the quantile-on-quantile method to assess the impact of PHE by capturing the distribution dependence across variables. According to the findings, PHE encourages PHOs when its share of GDP is higher than 0.86% and lower than 6.63–6.82%. However, as PHOs are the outcome of a mix of other socioeconomic factors, spending within a fair range does not always have a favorable impact.