You have no items in your shopping cart.
ABSTRACT
Health as a human capital affects productivity directly through its impact on labour productivity. This work analyzed empirically the impact of public health expenditure on productivity in Nigeria. The study employs econometric techniques to verify the time series properties and the relationship among public health expenditure, maternal mortality rate, HIV/AIDs prevalence rate, life expectancy rate and productivity in Nigeria. The Dickey-Fuller Generalized Least Squares (DF-GLS) test was used to ascertain the order of integration of the time series. The Engel-Granger (residual-based) and multivariate Johansen co-integration tests were used to determine the long-run relationship between the dependent and the set of independent variables. The Error Correction Model (ECM) was used to model the short-run impact of the public health expenditure, health indicator variables and investment on productivity in Nigeria. The empirical results showed that there exists a long-run relationship among the variables. In the long run model, the regression results showed that public health expenditure has a negative significant impact on productivity in Nigeria. In addition, the findings revealed that maternal mortality rate and HIV/AIDs prevalence rate have a negative significant impact on productivity in the long run. Again, the life expectancy rate was found to have a positive significant effect on productivity. In the short run, the multiple regression results showed that public health expenditure has a positive insignificant impact on productivity in Nigeria. Also, the findings revealed that the maternal mortality rate has a negative insignificant effect on productivity in the short run. Again, HIV/AIDs prevalence rate was found to have a positive insignificant effect on productivity in the short term in Nigeria. Similarly, life expectancy turned out to have an insignificant positive impact on productivity in the short run in Nigeria. The study thus recommends that further study should be carried out to ascertain the cause of the negative relationship between public health expenditure and productivity in Nigeria. The government should increase public health expenditure; improve facilities for maternal healthcare to increase productivity in Nigeria.
