The impact of health expenditures on economic growth: The example of G-20 countries and Türkiye

With the developing technology, health has become a multidimensional concept that has evolved and changed not only for countries but also globally. The application of technological developments in the field of health has facilitated access to health services and has made it possible for diseases that were once serious to become commonplace. The development of opportunities for individuals to benefit from health services in an equitable manner constitutes an important agenda in the international arena. Especially with the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, this has been an issue on which international institutions and organizations have been working intensively, and countries have made significant contributions. Therefore, health is an area that has a cost for countries and has an impact on national economies. In this study, the relationship between health expenditures and economic growth is analyzed in terms of The Group of Twenty (G-20) countries. In this study, in analyzing the relationship between health expenditures and economic growth in G-20 countries between 2000-2019, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data of the countries were used as the economic growth variable. As the variable of health expenditures, the health expenditures of the countries published by the World Bank were used and horizontal cross-sectional dependence and homogeneity tests were applied in the analysis. Then, co-integration, error correction model, causality and finally the causality analysis methods developed by Emirmahmutoğlu and Köse, which can summarize country-based results, were used. As a result of the analysis, it is observed that there is no causality relationship between GDP and health expenditures as a share of GDP in the short run. In the long run, it is analyzed that there is a mutual Granger causality relationship between GDP and the ratio of health expenditures to GDP at a significance level of 1%. In the causality analysis, it is concluded that the causality is from health expenditures to economic growth. While this result is valid for a group of countries (Türkiye, Mexico, South Africa, United Kingdom, Canada, Italy, Argentina, China, Australia, Brazil, France, India, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Indonesia, Germany, and the United States of America), it was found to be significant on a country basis in countries such as Canada, Indonesia, South Africa, France and the United States of America.