This study investigates long run relationship between health care expenditure and real income in fifteen selected Asian countries over the period 1995–2014 using the panel cointegration tests and controlling for cross-sectional dependence through unobserved common correlated factors (UCFs). The results show that health care expenditure and income are cointegrated. It is found that the income elasticity scales down when UCFs are controlled, which implies that ignoring UCFs produces biased and inconsistent estimates. The Mean Group and Common Correlated Effects Mean Group estimates reveal that long run income elasticity of health care is less than unity for the entire panel, indicating that health care is a necessity good in Asian countries. Within the sample, income elasticity for South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation countries and Association of Southeast Asian Nations countries is also less than unity. However, many of the previous studies report income elasticity greater than unity. The difference between the results we found in our study compared to previous work could be attributed to the use of estimation methodology and the sample analyzed. Overall, health care has been found a necessity good in Asian countries in the long run.

中文翻译：

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保健是奢侈品还是必需品？来自亚洲国家的证据。

本研究使用面板协整检验并通过未观察到的公共相关因子（UCF）控制横断面依赖，调查了1995-2014年间15个选定的亚洲国家的医疗保健支出与实际收入之间的长期关系。结果表明，医疗保健支出和收入是协整的。研究发现，控制UCF时收入弹性会降低，这意味着忽略UCF会产生有偏差且前后不一致的估计。均值组和共同相关效应均值组估计表明，医疗保健的长期收入弹性不足以使整个小组的团结一致，这表明在亚洲国家，医疗保健是必不可少的。在样本中 南亚区域合作协会国家和东南亚国家联盟国家的收入弹性也不够统一。但是，许多先前的研究报告说收入弹性大于统一。我们在研究中发现的结果与以前的工作之间的差异可能归因于估算方法和分析样本的使用。总体而言，从长远来看，在亚洲国家，人们已经发现医疗保健必不可少。