The growth of public health expenditures in OECD countries: do government ideology and electoral motives matter?

Niklas Potrafke

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: This paper empirically evaluates whether government ideology and electoral motives influenced the growth of public health expenditures in 18 OECD countries over the 1971-2004 period. The results suggest that incumbents behaved opportunistically and increased the growth of public health expenditures in election years. Government ideology did not have an influence. These findings indicate (1) the importance of public health in policy debates before elections and (2) the political pressure towards re-organizing public health policy platforms especially in times of demographic change.

Keywords: public health expenditures; health policies; government ideology; partisan politics; electoral cycles; panel data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 D72 H51 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-07-23
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-hea, nep-pbe and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (133)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The growth of public health expenditures in OECD countries: Do government ideology and electoral motives matter? (2010)
Working Paper: The growth of public health expenditures in OECD countries: Do government ideology and electoral motives matter? (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:24083

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