Health expenditures spent for prevention and utility-adjusted life expectancy in a growing economy

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• 研討會日期 : 2014-09-26
• 時間 : 12:00
• 主講人 : Professor Fuhmei Wang
• 主持人 : Professor Stacey Chen
• 地點 : Conference Room B110
• 演講者簡介 : Professor Wang received her Ph.D. in Economics from University of Birmingham in 1996. She is currently a Professor of Economics at National Cheng Kung University. Her research fields are Macroeconomics, Public Finance.
• 演講摘要 : This research aims to examine the influences of raising preventive health expenditure on the economic performance, social welfare, and health status. Theoretical analysis shows that an inverse U shape relationship between the proportion of health expenditures spent for prevention in GDP (gross domestic products) and social welfare exists as that between the proportion spent for prevention and economic growth presents. However, the welfare-maximizing preventive expenditure proportion is greater than that of maximizing economic growth, indicating a conflict between economic growth and welfare. The excellent national health insurance (NHI) system in Taiwan has become a very important learning model by which any country can revamp or redistribute its healthcare resources. Based on Taiwan’s experiences, this research further calibrates the variations of population’s utility or welfare through the method of utility-adjusted life expectancy (UALE). When the proportion of health expenditures spent for prevention in GDP increases from current allocation, 0.27 per cent, to the growth-maximizing share, 1.19 per cent, economic growth rate would increase from 3.12 per cent to 4 per cent and average personal welfare would increase by 5.03 utility-adjusted life years (UALY). When the proportion of prevention expenditure reaches the welfare-maximizing optimum, 2.03 per cent, the economy would grow at 3.9 per cent and increase the UALE by 5.37 UALY. Research results fill in the void in the literature and provide assessments on the improvement of health status for providing preventive healthcare and guide the policy of allocating medical resources, and may be applicable to other countries with a similar system of national health insurance. ＊　Lunch boxes will be provided for attendees. Please reply to Assistant Hanpei Tseng via phone call (27892639 ext 626) or e-mail (hptseng@econ.sinica.edu.tw). □ General □ Vegetarian □ Special request _________________ ＊Please confirm your preference by 16:00 pm, September 24th (Wednesday).