The relationship between healthcare expenditure and disposable personal income in the US states : a fractional integration and cointegration analysis

This study examines the relationship between healthcare expenditure and disposable income in the 50 US states over the period 1966-2009 using fractional integration and cointegration techniques. The degree of integration and nonlinearity of both series are found to vary considerably across states, whilst the fractional cointegration analysis suggests that a long-run relationship exists between them in only 11 out of the 50 US states. The estimated long-run income elasticity of healthcare expenditure suggests that health care is a luxury good in these states. By contrast, the short-run elasticity obtained from the regressions in first differences is in the range (0,1) for most US states, which suggests that health care is a necessity good instead. The implications of these results for health policy are also discussed.