IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/soinre/v139y2018i1d10.1007_s11205-017-1702-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What Determines Health Status of Population in Pakistan?

Author

Listed:
  • Faisal Abbas

    (Independant Researcher and Consultant based in Islamabad
    Cornell University)

  • Haroon Sarwar Awan

    (University of Kansas
    Planning Commission of Pakistan, Pak Secretariat)

Abstract

This paper empirically examines factors related to social, economic, demographic and health care services that affect health status in Pakistan. The analysis is conducted using ARDL bound testing approach on annual data ranging from 1960 to 2014. It is estimated that health spending has a significant impact on health status, specifically, development health spending and income are robust predictors of health status for the population in Pakistan and is seen to affect female life expectancy positively in both the short and in long run, however, it is important to note that the impact of income per capita is relatively stronger than that of public health spending. Total fertility rate (fr) appears to have a significant effect on child mortality rate (cmr) with a negative sign both in the short and in long-run. This result is especially important for developing countries like Pakistan where population growth is high and infant deaths are frequent. Bidirectional causality exists between infant and child mortality and fertility rate; these results are supported by the modern economic theory of population. The effect of medical personnel availability on health status, particularly in reducing infant and child mortality, remains statistically non-significant despite the bidirectional causal relationship between this variable and the infant and child mortality. Nutrition appears to be causally related to life expectancy and child mortality. Thus, it is important for the Government of Pakistan to design its policies based on the development targets in addition to the growth targets that have been set in place for the country.

Suggested Citation

  • Faisal Abbas & Haroon Sarwar Awan, 2018. "What Determines Health Status of Population in Pakistan?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 139(1), pages 1-23, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:soinre:v:139:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1007_s11205-017-1702-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s11205-017-1702-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11205-017-1702-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11205-017-1702-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jacob Novignon & Solomon Olakojo & Justice Nonvignon, 2012. "The effects of public and private health care expenditure on health status in sub-Saharan Africa: new evidence from panel data analysis," Health Economics Review, Springer, vol. 2(1), pages 1-8, December.
    2. Alistair McGuire & David Parkin & David Hughes & Karen Gerard, 1993. "Econometric analyses of national health expenditures: Can positive economics help to answer normative questions?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 2(2), pages 113-126, July.
    3. Schultz, T Paul, 1993. "Mortality Decline in the Low-Income World: Causes and Consequences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(2), pages 337-342, May.
    4. Sah, Raaj Kumar, 1991. "The Effects of Child Mortality Changes on Fertility Choice and Parental Welfare," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(3), pages 582-606, June.
    5. Dickey, David A & Fuller, Wayne A, 1981. "Likelihood Ratio Statistics for Autoregressive Time Series with a Unit Root," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(4), pages 1057-1072, June.
    6. Schwert, G William, 2002. "Tests for Unit Roots: A Monte Carlo Investigation," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(1), pages 5-17, January.
    7. Johansen, Soren & Juselius, Katarina, 1990. "Maximum Likelihood Estimation and Inference on Cointegration--With Applications to the Demand for Money," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 52(2), pages 169-210, May.
    8. Rehana Siddiqui & Mir Annice Mahmood, 1994. "The Determinants of Health Status: A Cross-Country Analysis," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 33(4), pages 745-758.
    9. Darryl Holden & Roger Perman, 1994. "Unit Roots and Cointegration for the Economist," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: B. Bhaskara Rao (ed.), Cointegration, chapter 3, pages 47-112, Palgrave Macmillan.
    10. Griffith Feeney & Iqbal Alam, 2003. "New Estimates and Projections of Population Growth in Pakistan," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 29(3), pages 483-492, September.
    11. Bichaka Fayissa & Paulos Gutema, 2005. "The Determinants of Health Status in Sub-Saharan Africa (Ssa)," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 49(2), pages 60-66, October.
    12. Grossman, Michael, 1972. "On the Concept of Health Capital and the Demand for Health," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(2), pages 223-255, March-Apr.
    13. Robert J. Waldmann, 1992. "Income Distribution and Infant Mortality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(4), pages 1283-1302.
    14. M. Hashem Pesaran & Yongcheol Shin & Richard J. Smith, 2001. "Bounds testing approaches to the analysis of level relationships," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(3), pages 289-326.
    15. Pierre‐Yves Crémieux & Pierre Ouellette & Caroline Pilon, 1999. "Health care spending as determinants of health outcomes," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(7), pages 627-639, November.
    16. Engle, R. F. & Granger, C. W. J. (ed.), 1991. "Long-Run Economic Relationships: Readings in Cointegration," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198283393.
    17. Mahfuz Kabir, 2008. "Determinants of life expectancy in developing countries," Journal of Developing Areas, Tennessee State University, College of Business, vol. 41(2), January-M.
    18. Sen, Amartya, 1998. "Mortality as an Indicator of Economic Success and Failure," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(446), pages 1-25, January.
    19. Ghulam Mustafa Zahid, 1996. "Mother’s Health-seeking Behaviour and Childhood Mortality in Pakistan," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 35(4), pages 719-731.
    20. Lucia Hanmer & Robert Lensink & Howard White, 2003. "Infant and child mortality in developing countries: Analysing the data for Robust determinants," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(1), pages 101-118.
    21. Gbesemete, Kwame P. & Jonsson, Dick, 1993. "A comparison of empirical models on determinants of infant mortality: A cross-national study on Africa," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 155-174, May.
    22. Schultz, T. Paul, 2004. "Health economics and applications in developing countries," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 637-641, July.
    23. Lant Pritchett & Lawrence H. Summers, 1996. "Wealthier is Healthier," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 31(4), pages 841-868.
    24. Engle, Robert & Granger, Clive, 2015. "Co-integration and error correction: Representation, estimation, and testing," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 39(3), pages 106-135.
    25. Kimhi, Ayal, 2003. "Socio-economic determinants of health and physical fitness in southern Ethiopia," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 55-75, January.
    26. Banister, Judith & Zhang, Xiaobo, 2005. "China, Economic Development and Mortality Decline," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 21-41, January.
    27. Pedro Pita Barros, 1998. "The black box of health care expenditure growth determinants," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 7(6), pages 533-544, September.
    28. Bishai, David & Opuni, Marjorie & Poon, Andrew, 2007. "Does the level of infant mortality affect the rate of decline?: Time series data from 21 countries," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 74-81, March.
    29. Faisal Abbas & Ulrich Hiemenz, 2013. "What determines public health expenditures in Pakistan? Role of income, urbanization and unemployment," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 46(4), pages 341-362, November.
    30. Mohammed Zakir & Phanindra Wunnava, 1999. "Factors affecting infant mortality rates: evidence from cross-sectional data," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(5), pages 271-273.
    31. Sudhir Anand & Martin Ravallion, 1993. "Human Development in Poor Countries: On the Role of Private Incomes and Public Services," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 133-150, Winter.
    32. Bidani, Benu & Ravallion, Martin, 1997. "Decomposing social indicators using distributional data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 125-139, March.
    33. Marwa Farag & A. Nandakumar & Stanley Wallack & Dominic Hodgkin & Gary Gaumer & Can Erbil, 2013. "Health expenditures, health outcomes and the role of good governance," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 33-52, March.
    34. Michael Grossman, 1972. "A Stock Approach to the Demand for Health," NBER Chapters, in: The Demand for Health: A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation, pages 1-10, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    35. Filmer, Deon & Pritchett, Lant, 1999. "The impact of public spending on health: does money matter?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 49(10), pages 1309-1323, November.
    36. Suwal, Juhee V., 2001. "The main determinants of infant mortality in Nepal," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 53(12), pages 1667-1681, December.
    37. Johansen, Soren, 1988. "Statistical analysis of cointegration vectors," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 12(2-3), pages 231-254.
    38. Alberto Palloni & Hantamala Rafalimanana, 1999. "The effects of infant mortality on fertility revisited: new evidence from latin america," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 36(1), pages 41-58, February.
    39. Messias, E., 2003. "Income Inequality, Illiteracy Rate, and Life Expectancy in Brazil," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 93(8), pages 1294-1296.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Faisal Abbas & Ulrich Hiemenz, 2013. "What determines public health expenditures in Pakistan? Role of income, urbanization and unemployment," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 46(4), pages 341-362, November.
    2. Marwa Farag & A. Nandakumar & Stanley Wallack & Dominic Hodgkin & Gary Gaumer & Can Erbil, 2013. "Health expenditures, health outcomes and the role of good governance," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 33-52, March.
    3. Abbas, Faisal & Hiemenz, Ulrich, 2011. "Determinants of Public Health expenditures in Pakistan," Discussion Papers 118422, University of Bonn, Center for Development Research (ZEF).
    4. Mohanty, Ranjan Kumar & Behera, Deepak Kumar, 2020. "How Effective is Public Health Care Expenditure in Improving Health Outcome? An Empirical Evidence from the Indian States," Working Papers 20/300, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.
    5. Ya-Hui Huang & Chien-Chiang Lee & Chun-Ping Chang, 2016. "Medical Personnel and Life Expectancy: New Evidence from Taiwan," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 128(3), pages 1425-1447, September.
    6. Levent KORAP, 2008. "Exchange Rate Determination Of Tl/Us$:A Co-Integration Approach," Istanbul University Econometrics and Statistics e-Journal, Department of Econometrics, Faculty of Economics, Istanbul University, vol. 7(1), pages 24-50, May.
    7. Jennifer Franz & Felix R. FitzRoy, 2005. "Child mortaility, poverty and environment in developing countries," Discussion Paper Series, School of Economics and Finance 200518, School of Economics and Finance, University of St Andrews.
    8. Otero, Jesus & Smith, Jeremy, 1966. "The Effects Of Seasonal Adjustment Linear Filters On Cointegrating Equations: A Monte Carlo Investigation," Economic Research Papers 272847, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    9. Micheal Kofi Boachie & Tatjana Põlajeva & Albert Opoku Frimpong, 2020. "Infant Mortality in Low- and Middle-income Countries: Does Government Health Spending Matter?," Journal of Development Policy and Practice, , vol. 5(1), pages 54-73, January.
    10. Díaz Serrano, Lluís & Sackey, Frank G., 2016. "Do political regime transitions in Africa Matter for Citizens’ Health Status," Working Papers 2072/267086, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    11. ATAKE, Esso - Hanam, 2014. "Financement Public des dépenses de santé et survie infantile au Togo [Public funding of health expenditure and infant survival in Togo]," MPRA Paper 59320, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 26 Oct 2014.
    12. Thirunaukarasu Subramaniam & Nanthakumar Loganathan & Erez Yerushalmi & Evelyn Shyamala Devadason & Mazlan Majid, 2018. "Determinants of Infant Mortality in Older ASEAN Economies," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 136(1), pages 397-415, February.
    13. AfDB AfDB, 2007. "Working Paper 91 - Health Expenditures and Health Outcomes in Africa," Working Paper Series 2224, African Development Bank.
    14. Mansour Farahani & S. V. Subramanian & David Canning, 2010. "Effects of state‐level public spending on health on the mortality probability in India," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(11), pages 1361-1376, November.
    15. Ali, Amjad & Ahmad, Khalil, 2014. "The Impact of Socio-Economic Factors on Life Expectancy for Sultanate of Oman: An Empirical Analysis," MPRA Paper 82500, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2014.
    16. Halicioglu, Ferda, 2011. "Modeling life expectancy in Turkey," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(5), pages 2075-2082, September.
    17. Ali, Amjad & Bibi, Chan, 2016. "Determinants of Social Progress and its Scenarios under the role of Macroeconomic Instability: Empirics from Pakistan," MPRA Paper 72920, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Kyriakos Emmanouilidis & Christos Karpetis, 2020. "The Defense–Growth Nexus: A Review of Time Series Methods and Empirical Results," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(1), pages 86-104, January.
    19. Kaminski, Jermain & Hopp, Christian & Tykvová, Tereza, 2019. "New technology assessment in entrepreneurial financing – Does crowdfunding predict venture capital investments?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 287-302.
    20. Deepak Kumar Behera & Umakant Dash, 2020. "Is health expenditure effective for achieving healthcare goals? Empirical evidence from South-East Asia Region," Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 593-618, June.

    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:spr:soinre:v:139:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1007_s11205-017-1702-5. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.