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Out- Of- Pocket health expenditure and household consumption patterns in Benin: Is there a crowding out effect?

Health shocks are common and have serious consequences for households in developing countries where health insurance is lacking. In this study, we examine whether out-of-pocket health expenditures crowd out household consumption of non-healthcare necessities, such as education items in Benin using a...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Houeninvo, Hilaire Gbodja, Quenum, Venant Cossi Celestin, Senou, Melain Modeste
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10041797/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36971878
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13561-023-00429-8
Descripción
Sumario:Health shocks are common and have serious consequences for households in developing countries where health insurance is lacking. In this study, we examine whether out-of-pocket health expenditures crowd out household consumption of non-healthcare necessities, such as education items in Benin using a sample of 14,952 households from the global vulnerability and food security analysis survey. We estimated a system of conditional Engel curves with three stage least squared (3SLS) and seemingly unrelated regression (SURE) for seven categories of goods using the Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System (QUAIDS) in the form of budget shares corresponding to proportions of total non-health expenditure. Findings show that out of pocket health expenditure leads households to spend more on health care that in fine crowd out expenditure in other necessity goods such as education item. These findings highlight the need for social protection programs to mitigate the impact of health shocks on vulnerable households in Benin.