Democracy, economic growth and government spending in public health in Southeast Asia

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine how political regimes and political transition affect government decisions to allocate budgets to the public health sector in Southeast Asia. Design/methodology/approach - Ordinary least squares with fixed-effects model is adopted to examine the effect of political regime on public health spending. Findings - Examining the allocation of public health budgets in Southeast Asian countries, the paper finds that a democratic government positively leads to an increase in public health budget allocation, while autocratic government negatively affects the allocation of public health budgets. Further, political liberalization contributes to an increase in budget allocation to the public health sector. Originality/value - Democratic politics and economic development aim to distribute public resources to social policy, such as policy on public health.