Search

The dramatic growth in health expenditures is an important health policy concern worldwide. Therefore, understanding the factors that increase health expenditures provides policy makers with evidence for decision-making. We aim to examine long-term effects of carbon dioxide emission, urbanization rate and GDP per capita on health expenditures. This study investigates the effect of carbon dioxide emission, urban population, and GDP per capita on health expenditure for 21 OECD countries over the period 1992–2018. Panel ARDL Approach and Gengenbach, Urbain and Westerlund Panel Co-integration Test have been used in the article. Test results indicate the long-run relationship among health expenditure and carbon dioxide emission, urban population, and GDP per capita. Effect of carbon dioxide emission (CO2), urban population, and GDP per capita is significant and positive on health expenditure. Rapid economic growths of OECD countries recently and environmental pollution have increased health expenditures in the long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a comparative analysis of the determinants, sustenance and broader macroeconomic consequences of the ultimately unsustainable housing boom in Ireland and the UK in recent years. It examines, in particular, the role played by ostensibly depoliticised monetary policy in both contexts in the development of a house price bubble that has served to fuel consumer-led growth. It assesses the viability, sustainability and reproducibility of the private debt-financed consumer boom that house price inflation has generated. In the process it draws attention to the increasingly differentiated character of both government inflationary preferences and counter-inflationary performance—with the shift to official measures of inflation that exclude mortgage interest repayments and, in the UK at least, to the covert re-politicisation of monetary policy. It concludes by suggesting that governments may well not have time-inconsistent inflationary preferences so much as sectorally specific inflationary preferences. This might be summarised in terms of the aphorism: ‘retail price inflation bad, house price inflation good’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the economic growth and energy consumption patterns, most countries are striving to solve the problems of CO 2 emissions reduction to achieve sustainable development. This paper employs an improved DEA model to measure energy and environmental efficiency for some selected countries in central and western Europe. In addition, the DEA window evaluation technique is applied to measure cross-sectional efficiency using two inputs (energy consumption, labor force), a desirable output (gross domestic product), and an undesirable output (CO 2 emission) for the period from 2010 to 2014. The study finds that the UK ranks the highest position in term of energy and environmental efficiency. This shows that the UK has more effective policies regarding energy efficiency, consumption, production, import and energy intensity measures for sustainable economic growth as well as environmental protection. Ireland is the second-best country after the United Kingdom. The efficiency scores of the two countries are 0.99 and 0.89 respectively. On the empirical outcomes, this study suggests effective reforms in energy sector for countries with less energy efficiency that are still facing the problem of environmental degradation. •There is an urgent need to balance sustainable development and economic growth. •DEA window technique was applied to measure cross-sectional efficiency. •Ireland is second best country after UK with energy and environmental efficiency. •The market-centric structure would be more useful and advantageous for the society. •We provide recommendations about emission reduction with moderate economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]