Relationship carbon dioxide emission, health expenditures, economic growth and life expectancy: Evidence on BRICS-T

Objective: Environmental pollution, after its dominant effect recently, affects both the economic structures of countries around the world and causes negative consequences on human health. Therefore, this study investigates the relationship between environmental pollution, real gross domestic product, health expenditures and life expectancy at birth using annual data for the period 2000-2018 in BRICS-T countries. Material and Methods: In this study, Augmented Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) method Pooled Mean Group (PMG) estimator was chosen for long- and short-term estimations and Dumitrescu Hurlin panel causality test was used for causality relationship between series. Results: PMG-ARDL test results show that long-term health expenditures and urbanization have a positive and statistically significant effect on CO2 emissions for the first data set. Moreover, a negative effect of income and renewable energy consumption on environmental pollution at the 1% significance level was determined. In the short run, real gross domestic product negatively affects environmental quality. In the second data set, it was determined that long-term health expenditures and life expectancy at birth had a positive effect on income at the 1% significance level. In addition, renewable energy consumption and CO2 emissions were found to have a negative and significant effect on income. On the contrary, it has been found that CO2 emissions and renewable energy consumption have a positive and significant effect on income in the short run. On the other hand, health expenditures, have been found to affect income negatively in the short run. In the third data set, it was determined that income, CO2 emissions and renewable energy consumption positively affect health expenditures at the 1% significance level. However, it is seen that the population has a negative and statistically significant effect on health expenditures. In the fourth data set, it was found that income and health expenditures have a positive and statistically significant long-term effect on life expectancy at birth. On the contrary, it has been determined that CO2 emissions have a negative effect on life expectancy at birth at the 5% significance level. According to the Dumitrescu Hurlin panel causality test results, while confirming the existence of a bidirectional causality relationship between CO2 emissions and life expectancy at birth, health expenditures and population, health expenditures and life expectancy at birth, from CO2 emissions to income and urbanization; from health expenditures to CO2 emissions, a unidirectional causality relationship has been determined from renewable energy consumption to income, from income to health expenditures and life expectancy at birth. Conclusion: In this study, it was concluded that environmental pollution, income, health expenditures and life expectancy at birth affect each other in BRICS-T countries. Keywords: Environmental pollution, real gross domestic product, health expenditures, life expectancy at birth, BRICS-T countries.