The effects of health shocks on life insurance consumption, economic growth, and health expenditure: A dynamic time and space analysis

Abstract

Using 2004–2013 annual data from 22 countries, this study empirically tests whether changes in perceived health status (i.e., “health shocks”) can affect the impacts otherwise made by economic growth and life insurance growth on health expenditures. We applied the structural time-varying parameter panel vector autoregression model to establish a multinational empirical model and derived four main results. (1) The health shocks variable, represented by perceived health by socioeconomic status, has positive dynamic effects on economic growth, insurance consumption growth, and health expenditure growth. (2) As for the impact of the gross domestic product variable, insurance was found to finance health expenditures in the short term. (3) Under dynamic conditions, at high-income levels, health shocks stimulate economic growth, but at low-income levels, health shocks can make economic growth stagnant; it can also reduce health expenditures. (4) At low-income levels, insurance cannot diversify health shocks. On account of financial crises, there have been structural changes in the global economy, and they affect the relationships among economic growth, insurance consumption, and health expenditures.