IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/luc/wpaper/08-13.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Shortage of Medical Workers in Sub-Saharan Africa and Substitution Policy

Author

Listed:
  • Arnaud Bourgain
  • Patrice Pieretti
  • Benteng Zou

    (CREA, University of Luxembourg)

Abstract

Substitution policies are strategies sometimes chosen in Sub-Saharan Africa for curtailing the shortage of health professionals especially caused by the outflow of medical personnel. The aim of our contribution is to propose a way to assess the merits and drawbacks of substitution policies by developing a simple growth model of healthcare productivity with medical brain drain. Within this framework, we use a medical care production function of the CES type which aggregates low and high specialized health workers. We then run simulations which compare scenarios with and without substitution strategies by using data from the Ghana’s medical sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Arnaud Bourgain & Patrice Pieretti & Benteng Zou, 2008. "The Shortage of Medical Workers in Sub-Saharan Africa and Substitution Policy," DEM Discussion Paper Series 08-13, Department of Economics at the University of Luxembourg.
    • Handle: RePEc:luc:wpaper:08-13
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://wwwfr.uni.lu/content/download/16905/214263/file/2008-13_The%20Shortage%20of%20Medical%20Workers%20in%20Sub-Saharan%20Africa%20and%20Substitution%20Policy.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stark, Oded & Helmenstein, Christian & Prskawetz, Alexia, 1997. "A brain gain with a brain drain," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 227-234, August.
    2. Pieretti, Patrice & Zou, Benteng, 2009. "Brain drain and factor complementarity," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 404-413, March.
    3. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:6:y:2007:i:35:p:1-11 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Benteng ZOU & Patrice Pieretti, 2007. "An Extended Solow Growth Model with Emigration: Transitional Dynamics and Skills Complementarity," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 6(35), pages 1-11.
    5. Stark, Oded & Helmenstein, Christian & Prskawetz, Alexia, 1998. "Human capital depletion, human capital formation, and migration: a blessing or a "curse"?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 60(3), pages 363-367, September.
    6. Alan Maynard, 2006. "Medical Workforce Planning: Some Forecasting Challenges," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 39(3), pages 323-329, September.
    7. Alok Bhargava & Frédéric Docquier, 2008. "HIV Pandemic, Medical Brain Drain, and Economic Development in Sub-Saharan Africa," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 22(2), pages 345-366, May.
    8. M. H. Khalil Timamy, 2005. "Debate," Review of African Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(104-105), pages 383-393, June.
    9. Richardson, Gerald & Maynard, Alan & Cullum, Nicky & Kindig, David, 1998. "Skill mix changes: substitution or service development?," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 119-132, August.
    10. Martineau, Tim & Decker, Karola & Bundred, Peter, 2004. ""Brain drain" of health professionals: from rhetoric to responsible action," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 1-10, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Driouchi, Ahmed, 2014. "Evidence and Prospects of Shortage and Mobility of Medical Doctors: A Literature Survey," MPRA Paper 59322, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Antwi, James & Phillips, David C., 2013. "Wages and health worker retention: Evidence from public sector wage reforms in Ghana," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 101-115.
    2. Docquier, Frédéric, 2006. "Brain Drain and Inequality Across Nations," IZA Discussion Papers 2440, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Luca Marchiori & I-Ling Shen & Frédéric Docquier, 2013. "Brain Drain In Globalization: A General Equilibrium Analysis From The Sending Countries' Perspective," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 51(2), pages 1582-1602, April.
    4. Bertoli, Simone & Brücker, Herbert, 2011. "Selective immigration policies, migrants' education and welfare at origin," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 113(1), pages 19-22, October.
    5. Stark, Oded & Dorn, Agnieszka, 2013. "International migration, human capital formation, and saving," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 118(3), pages 411-414.
    6. Joshua Bedi, 2024. "Fake marriages, asylum, and gas station robberies: institutional determinants of migrants' strategies," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 35(1), pages 45-72, March.
    7. P. Giannoccolo, 2004. "The Brain Drain. A Survey of the Literature," Working Papers 526, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    8. Pehr‐Johan Norbäck & Martin Olsson & Lars Persson, 2021. "Talent development and labour market integration in European football," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(2), pages 367-408, February.
    9. Grossmann, Volker & Stadelmann, David, 2011. "Does international mobility of high-skilled workers aggravate between-country inequality?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(1), pages 88-94, May.
    10. Oded Stark & C. Simon Fan, 2009. "The Brain Drain, ‘Educated Unemployment’, Human Capital Formation, and Economic Betterment," International Economic Association Series, in: János Kornai & László Mátyás & Gérard Roland (ed.), Corruption, Development and Institutional Design, chapter 7, pages 120-151, Palgrave Macmillan.
    11. repec:hal:journl:hal-00779716 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Batista, Catia & Seither, Julia & Vicente, Pedro C., 2019. "Do migrant social networks shape political attitudes and behavior at home?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 328-343.
    13. Nil Demet Güngör & Aysıt Tansel, 2008. "Brain drain from Turkey: the case of professionals abroad," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 29(4), pages 323-347, July.
    14. Stark, Oded & Wang, Yong, 2002. "Inducing human capital formation: migration as a substitute for subsidies," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 29-46, October.
    15. Nil Demet Gungor & Aysit Tansel, 2009. "Brain Drain from Turkey: Return Intentions of Skilled Migrants," ERC Working Papers 0902, ERC - Economic Research Center, Middle East Technical University, revised Oct 2009.
    16. Volker Grossmann & David Stadelmann, 2013. "Wage Effects of High-Skilled Migration: International Evidence," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 27(2), pages 297-319.
    17. Ravi Kanbur & Hillel Rapoport, 2005. "Migration selectivity and the evolution of spatial inequality," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 5(1), pages 43-57, January.
    18. Frédéric Docquier & Elisabetta Lodigiani, 2010. "Skilled Migration and Business Networks," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 21(4), pages 565-588, September.
    19. Leonid V. Azarnert, 2012. "Guest‐worker Migration, Human Capital and Fertility," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(2), pages 318-330, May.
    20. Daniele Checchi & Gianfranco De Simone & Riccardo Faini, 2007. "Skilled Migration, FDI and Human Capital Investment," UNIMI - Research Papers in Economics, Business, and Statistics unimi-1067, Universitá degli Studi di Milano.
    21. Simona Monteleone & Benedetto Torrisi, 2010. "A micro data analysis of Italy’s brain drain," Discussion Papers 4_2010, D.E.S. (Department of Economic Studies), University of Naples "Parthenope", Italy.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Medical shortage; healthcare policy; substitution policy.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:luc:wpaper:08-13. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Marina Legrand (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/crcrplu.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.