WHAT DRIVES HEALTHCARE EXPENDITURE GROWTH? EVIDENCE FROM CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPEAN ECONOMIES

The aim of this paper is to examine the determinants of healthcare expenditure in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) countries. The study covers the period between the years 2000 and 2018. In our research, we implement error correction based on an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model, with focus on the Pooled Mean Group (PMG) estimator. Our estimation results revealed that, in combination, health spending, income, medical progress, population ageing and fiscal capacity together form a statistically significant and stable long-term economic relationship. Our analysis indicates that healthcare spending responds to both short-term and long-term income changes. The obtained results support the prevailing view that health should not be considered a luxury good with income elasticity close to unity. In the long term, medical progress and population ageing also significantly influence health spending, whilst these variables prove to be insignificant over the short term. Ultimately, government capacity is positively related to health spending dynamics.