The impact of health care financing on the economic growth: EU countries analysis
Authors: Samoilikova Anastasiia , Kunev Rosen 
Published: May 2021

This article generalized modern tendencies and actual peculiarities of health care financing. The key aim of the research is to investigate the dynamics of health care financing as a factor of economic growth based on EU countries analysis. Systematization information sources connected with health care financing and its structure indicate that the EU countries analysis of dynamics of health care financing and its impact on economic growth was conducted fragmentary. This issue is still actual both for scholars and policymakers, especially for Ukraine, based on European trends. Investigation in the article is made according to the following stages: 1) introduction and relevance grounding; 2) literary review and identifying the necessity of research in this scientific area; 3) describing methodology, research methods, and current hypothesis; 4) characteristic of research results and confirming the hypothesis of the positive impact of the health care financing on economic growth; 5) making conclusions. Methodological tools of the research methods were structural and comparative analysis, logical generalization, and scientific abstraction. The methods of cross-country statistical and analytical analysis using the Excel 2010 software package for the sample from 14 EU countries for 2009-2018 (limited number of countries and limited data in 2018 relate to the data availability on open website of the EU statistical office) were applied to analyse the structure of health care financing, in particular financing schemes, main providers, and health care functions. The top countries in health care financing were identified. The methods of empirical analysis using the STATA software package for this data sample were used to confirm the hypothesis about the positive impact of the health care financing on economic growth – the GDP per capita. The nature of the analysed indices distribution was estimated based on results of Shapiro-Wilk test. So, Pearson or Spearman correlation coefficient was chosen. The statistical significance and strength of the relationship between the indicators of total expenditure for health care, and in particular government financing and compulsory contributory health care financing, voluntary health care financing, and household out-of-pocket payment for health care and the change of GDP per capita were assessed through a correlation analysis. The time lags of achievement the most statistical significance by this relationship was also identified. The results of the research show that the impact of health care financing on the change of economic growth is very high in 12 from 14 investigated EU countries (with lags of 1–3 years) and high in 2 from 14 countries (with a lag of 1 year). The character of this relationship for the most countries (9 from 14 countries) is direct (positive), and for 5 countries it is inverse (negative). The results of the research will be useful during future fundamental and practical research connected with health care financing and its modelling, for scholars and government officials to reform the health care system and its financial mechanism.