Abstract

SANMARTIN-DURANGO, Daysi; HENAO-BEDOYA, Maria Alejandra; VALENCIA-ESTUPINAN, Yair Tadeo  and  RESTREPO-ZEA, Jairo Humberto. Efficiency of health expenditure in the OECD and LAC: a data envelopment analysis. Lect. Econ. [online]. 2019, n.91, pp.41-78. ISSN 0120-2596.  https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.le.n91a02.

This paper measures the efficiency of expenditure in health care in 62 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), based on the ratio between the level of total expenditure (as percent of GDP) and some health results (life expectancy and mortality rates in children under five years of age per every 1000 children born alive). For this purpose, the non-parametric method data envelopment analysis was applied using data from 1995, 2005 and 2014 for each group. The results allow identifying the relative efficiency and position of the set of countries analysed within both groups of countries. In 2014, the most efficient countries in LAC were Chile, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Jamaica, whilst in the OECD these were Japan, Luxembourg and Turkey. The average efficiency of LAC countries turns out to be below that of the OECD (0.938 and 0.974, respectively).

Clasificación JEL: I19, H21, C14, O54, O57.

Keywords : health expenditure; efficiency; data envelopment analysis; Latin America and the Caribbean; Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

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