How effective is public health expenditure in improving overall health? A cross-country analysis

The primary emphasis of this paper is on seeking some justification for the worldwide phenomenon of increasing government involvement in health-care. The disability-adjusted-health-expectancy (DALE) rankings of countries in the World Health Report, 2000, ranked wealthier countries, with a typically large public sector involvement in health-care, higher on the list. Contrary to the possible implications for this ranking, this paper finds that the comparatively higher DALE in wealthier countries is not a result of greater public health expenditures. In the middle income and less developed countries, however, there is some evidence of effective public involvement in health-care.