Abstract

This study investigates the causal relationship between Income Inequality and Healthcare Expenditure within a quantile panel-type causality framework using yearly panel data from 2004 to 2017. The empirical results show that within the high-growth regime of health expenditure to income ratio, reducing the deterioration of income inequality can make the ratio of health expenditure to income keep increasing. Besides, within the extreme income inequality regime, the ratio of health expenditure to income continues to increase, which can reduce the deterioration degree of income inequality. This paper presents evidence that to improve the continuous deterioration of income inequality; it should focus on the continuous increase in the ratio of health expenditure to income, not just the continuous increase in health expenditure. Accordingly, policy-makers should be cautious about the momentum between the ratio of health expenditure to income and income inequality when they reach the extremely quantiles.

摘要

本研究使用 2004 年至 2017 年的年度面板数据，在分位数面板型因果关系框架内调查收入不平等与医疗支出之间的因果关系。实证结果表明，在医疗支出收入比高增长的情况下，减少恶化收入不平等的消除可以使卫生支出与收入的比率不断增加。此外，在极端收入不平等体制下，卫生支出占收入的比例不断上升，可以降低收入不平等的恶化程度。本文提出了改善收入不平等持续恶化的证据；应该着眼于卫生支出收入比的不断提高，而不仅仅是卫生支出的不断增加。因此，