The determinants of public health care expenditure in Kenya
Abstract
There is extensive literature on the determinants of health expenditure in OEeD
countries, but the same is not true for developing countries. Kenya being a developing
country experiences the same. The main purpose of this study is to investigate determinants
of health care expenditure in Kenya. This study discusses the theoretical literature related
to public expenditure theory, a dynamic theory of public spending and the Baumol
model. The study reviews empirical literature and local research on health care
expenditure.
The study used descriptive study where the researcher gathered data from the published
statistics and accounts from economic surveys and strategic plan from the Ministry of
Finance and the Ministry of Health. This study also used secondary data which was
obtained from economic surveys of Kenyan health care expenditure. Ratio analysis and
various models were used to analyze the secondary data collected from 1983 to 2012.
The study found that GDP and external funding have a significant int1uence on the Public
health expenditure in Kenya. It found that; a unit change in GDP results in 0.011 units
increase in Public health expenditure while a unit changes in external funding results in -
0.304 units decrease in Public health expenditure. Population age structure and
technological progress are also significant when t - statistics is used. One unit change in
population age structure results in 0.0000007 increases in Public health expenditure in
Kenya while a unit change in technological progress results in l.747 unit increase in
Public health expenditure in Kenya.
Citation
Master of Business AdministrationPublisher
Unversity of Nairobi