International Health Expenditure and GDP: New Multivariate Cointegration Panel Data Results

In this paper we test for existence of cointegration between health expenditure and GDP using data from 19 OECD countries for the period 1960-1995. Country-by-country and panel results based on the Johansen multivariate likelihood-based inference and a new panel test for cointegration rank are presented. The empirical modelling is based on a bivariate vector error correction model that allows for trending data as well as an intercept and a trend in the cointegrating relation. Given this model, the main result indicates that a cointegrating relation exists between health expenditure and GDP.