The link between social inequalities, health’ system characteristics and R&D expenditure- worldwide evidence

• Main Authors: Celia Dana BESCIU, Armenia ANDRONICEANU
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Romanian National Institute of Statistics 2017-06-01
• Series: Revista Română de Statistică
• Subjects: health system; GINI Index; infant deaths; health work force density; social equity; R&D expenditure
• Online Access: http://www.revistadestatistica.ro/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/RRS-2_2017_A2.pdf

The aim of this paper is to analyze the link between social inequality, measured by GINI index, health systems characteristics and R&D expenditure and to provide worldwide evidence. An undeveloped health system can have a negative impact on health status, can determine both the decrease of work capacity and earnings and can generate the increase of social inequality level measured by GINI index. This paper analyses and measures the correlation between GINI Index and the number of infant deaths, health work force density, health infrastructure and research and development expenditures from GDP The analysis was conducted using data and information from World Bank and World Health Organization. The used sample included all the observations that had available data. Depending on the number of observations that we have, we used panel data model or linear regression models. The results confirms our assumptions that high levels of GINI Index can be reduced through the increase of health work force density and through a high level of allocation from GDP for research and development expenditure Moreover, GINI index is positively related with the need of health infrastructure and the number of infants deaths. For future research, higher attention should be paid for the causality relations between immigration control, health resources and social inequalities, aspects that could determine macroeconomic imbalances at the world level.