Democracy, political freedom and health expenditures: evidence from Eastern Mediterranean countries
International Journal of Human Rights in Healthcare
ISSN: 2056-4902
Article publication date: 21 September 2015
Abstract
Purpose
Health can be influenced by many factors. One of the factors is the political context of the country and democracy. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of freedom in press and polity index in overall, public, private and out of pocket health expenditures.
Design/methodology/approach
A long-term panel data approach has been used to examine the relationship between democracy and health expenditures. The authors inserted polity and freedom into press indexes in the health expenditure model.
Findings
Increase in freedom of the press and democracy will increase the overall, public and private health expenditures while they decrease out of pocket health expenditures.
Originality/value
Polity and freedom index has a significant impact on all the health expenditure models.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
EHA initiated the idea of the study and gathered data and analyzed the model. AKK reviewed the literature and found the most appropriate variables for the model. FS wrote the paper and APR supervised the study.
Citation
Kazemi Karyani, A., Homaie Rad, E., Pourreza, A. and Shaahmadi, F. (2015), "Democracy, political freedom and health expenditures: evidence from Eastern Mediterranean countries", International Journal of Human Rights in Healthcare, Vol. 8 No. 3, pp. 187-194. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJHRH-01-2015-0001
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2015, Emerald Group Publishing Limited