Convergence of Health Care Expenditures Across the US States: A Reconsideration

Abstract

Current evidence on the convergence of health care expenditures across the US states into a single convergence club is non-existent. Against this backdrop, we use a modified panel unit root test that accounts for smooth structural changes, spanning the period of 1966–2009. The results illustrate that the ratio of the individual health care expenditures relative to the cross-sectional average is broken trend-stationary, not only in the aggregate panel, but also across all 50 US states. The findings also document that the evidence of convergence is possibly due to the convergence of personal disposable income across the US states.