Content №1 от 2019
Effect of Health Capital on the Economic Growth in Russian Regions
The article aims to estimate an effect of health capital on the economic growth in Russian regions in endogenous growth models with expenditure on science and healthcare. Estimation of health capital’s effect on regional growth is carried out within a framework that accounts for expenditure on healthcare in the increase of quality of human capital. Based on data for 80 Russian regions for 2005-2013, the author builds fixed effects panel and Arellano-Bond regressions accounting for reverse causality and tests a hypothesis about statistically significant positive effect of public expenditure on healthcare on the rate of economic growth in Russian regions. The results show that an increase in public health expenditure as a share of GRP by 1 pp results in a rise of GRP growth rate by 1.34 pp. Private expenditure on healthcare that are mainly related to consumption of paid medical services have a negative effect on regional growth in the Arellano-Bond model. The findings of this study can be used by regional governments when developing policies in science and healthcare.
