医疗服务是奢侈品吗?——基于政府和居民医疗卫生支出弹性的实证研究

Is Health Care A Luxury? An Empirical Study on the Income Elasticity of China's Government and Resident's Health Care Expenditure

近40年来,国内外学者在探讨医疗支出与经济增长(收入)的长期关系时,产生了一个重要的争论,即医疗服务到底是必需品还是奢侈品?本文在梳理以往研究文献的基础上,利用中国省级面板数据,基于政府医疗卫生支出和城镇居民医疗保健支出两个层面,采用面板单位根和面板协整检验,证明了医疗支出与经济增长(收入)之间存在长期均衡关系。在此基础上,利用最小二乘法(OLS)、双向固定效应模型(FE)和两阶段最小二乘法(2SLS)三种估计策略,分别估计政府和城镇居民医疗支出的收入弹性。研究发现,政府医疗支出弹性大于1,而城镇居民医疗支出弹性小于1。也就是说,医疗服务对政府来说是奢侈品,对居民则是必需品。

In recent 40 years,there has been an important argument about the question that health care is a luxury or necessity when the researchers are studying the relationship between health care expenditure and economic growth(income).This paper uses the panel unit tests and panel integration tests to examine the long equilibrium relationship of both in China based on the government's and city resident's health care expenditure.Then it applies the OLS,FE and 2SLS to estimate the income elasticity of government and city resident's health care expenditure.The results show that the income elasticity for government is larger than 1,while it is less than 1 for the residents.That is to say,health care is a luxury for government,but for city residents,it is a necessity.