Is it Possible to Buy Longevity: the Relationship between Health-Care Expenditures and Life Expectancy

The task of this article is to assess the effect of the health-care expenditures per capita on the life expectancy (LE). This paper hypothesizes that health-care expenditures lead to an increase in the life expectancy and that they affect LE in different ways depending on sex and age. For hypotheses testing the panel 6-year-data for 183 countries are used. Based on these data the authors build econometrical model, considering LE as a dependent variable. Other factors influencing LE are included as control variables, all independent variables are with taken with a 10-year lag. The hypotheses are partially confirmed. All other things being equal, health-care expenditures actually lead to an increase in the LE, but only for developing countries. The second hypothesis is also not fully confirmed: LE at old age is more quantitatively dependent on health-care expenditures then LE at birth is, however strong differences for men and women were not revealed.