Does Spending Matter in Improving Healthcare Across MENA Region

Abstract

This study addresses the impact of healthcare spending on quality of health. Particularly, it investigates the impact of health budget allocation, health system performance, a nation’s income, and demographic aspects on prompting health quality across the MENA region. The yearly data sample used covers the period 1995–2016. The estimated model is tested using the appropriate GLS random effects method. The findings do not show support for public spending on healthcare to improve healthcare quality across the MENA region. However, higher private spending on healthcare leads to lower infant mortality rates, thus improving healthcare quality. The results also show that the improvement in income per-capita for oil-exporting countries leads to improved quality of healthcare as well as in non-oil-exporting countries, however the marginal benefit is lower for oil-exporting countries, compared to non-oil-exporting countries. This might suggest that oil-exporting countries have already reached a significant floor level of infant mortality rate that cannot be improved. However, non-oil-exporting countries still have potential to reduce the infant mortality rate and improve the quality of healthcare.