Abstract
The healthcare and welfare policies of nations, as well as the amount of investments put into these areas, vary across countries. Investments in healthcare and welfare have been increasing worldwide which brings the question of assessing the efficiency of these investments. There are, however, difficulties in evaluating the effectiveness of such investments due to differences in countries’ economic development levels and due to the differences in data definition issues. There are only a limited number of studies in the literature that employ consistent and comparable indicators across countries. This study evaluates the healthcare investment efficiency and health competitiveness efficiency of 34 developing countries in Asia using a two-stage dynamic data envelopment analysis approach. Furthermore, we employ a broader measure of indicators on national healthcare and welfare policies and outcomes, in addition to the investment data on healthcare and welfare expenditures. Our findings indicate that the establishment of an investment environment with a consolidated approach and management is an important factor that increases the efficiency of investments in healthcare and welfare sectors. A consistent delivery of the national policy strategy is also crucial for reaching the medium-and long-term targets for each country. For example, if a country establishes healthcare and welfare policies that focus on improving its indicators with low efficiencies, the output will be improved and a better return on investment will be ensured in a long-term perspective.
Highlights
The World Health Organization (WHO) stated that one-quarter of global deaths, including one-third of child deaths, are related to environmental factors that can be improved [1]
The findings indicated the existence of large differences in the public sector performance (PSP) and public sector efficiency (PSE) across the countries in the sample, suggesting an important potential for expenditure savings in many countries
data envelopment analysis (DEA) is a non-parametric approach based on linear programming, with the Charnes, Cooper, and Rhodes (1978) model (CCR) that assumes constant returns to scale (CRS) [34], and the BCC model which deals with variable returns to scale (VRS) proposed by Banker et al (1984) [35]
Summary
The World Health Organization (WHO) stated that one-quarter of global deaths, including one-third of child deaths, are related to environmental factors that can be improved [1]. In countries with low economic levels, environmental factors significantly contribute to the incidence of disease and death. Asia includes the adjacent islands of the continent, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, and the. Depending on the level of development, countries in Asia are subject to air pollution arising from increased urbanization, low-grade fossil fuel use, indoor air pollution from biofuels, heavy metal pollution from mine development, water pollution from inadequate sewage and wastewater treatment facilities, and other chemical pollutions. Infectious diseases caused by climate change, sea-level rise, soil degradation, and spread of infection through animals are increasing throughout Asia [4].
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