Public Health Spending, Governance and Child Health Outcomes: Revisiting the Links

This paper empirically examines the determinants of child health in developing countries and how public policy may interact with these determinants. It improves on previous empirical studies by conducting a more careful analysis of the determinants controlling for possible endogeneity, and by using...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of human development and capabilities 2013-05, Vol.14 (2), p.285-311
Main Authors: Hu, Bingjie, Mendoza, Ronald U.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Child and infant mortality rates
Child health
Child mortality
Children
Country risk
Determinants
Developing Countries
Expenditures
Fiscal space
Governance
Government and politics
Government Spending
Health Care Services
Health expenditure
Health policy
Health Problems
Indexes
infant mortality
JEL code: H-51, I-18, O-15
Mortality
Mortality Rates
Public expenditure
Public Health
Public policy
Social spending
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Summary:This paper empirically examines the determinants of child health in developing countries and how public policy may interact with these determinants. It improves on previous empirical studies by conducting a more careful analysis of the determinants controlling for possible endogeneity, and by using a more comprehensive and richer panel dataset, drawing on a health database covering 136 countries over 1960-2005, supplemented by the latest World Development Indicators dataset as well as data on a broad variety of alternative indicators of governance, such as those from the International Country Risk Guide and the Open Budget Index. We find that both public spending on healthcare and the quality of governance matter for the reduction of child mortality rates. However, our mixed results on the interaction of governance with public spending throw some doubt on the conclusiveness of previous empirical studies.
ISSN:1945-2829
1945-2837
DOI:10.1080/19452829.2013.765392