Empirical Study on Public Health Expenditure of Local Government in China

Abstract

Public health expenditure is an important part of fiscal expenditure.With the establishment of the public finance system,it is important to define the ratio of public health expenditure in the fiscal expenditure reasonably.The paper uses panel data to analyze empirically what factors influence spending behaviors of local governments on health in China.The result indicates that there exists a certain correlation between economic development,population size,urbanization and local public spending on health.There is no necessary relation between population structure,the organization and official amount expan sion and public health expenditure.The fiscal decentralization has only a small negative effect on the public health expendi ture.