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Impact of health expenditures on infant mortality in Africa
Bajer, Vladimír ; Šlegerová, Lenka (advisor) ; Bertoli, Paola (referee)
Each year, the infant mortality rate per 1,000 live births in Africa is more than 15 times higher than in the Czech Republic. This thesis investigates whether infant, neonatal and under-5 mortality rates could be lowered by an increase in health expenditures in Africa. We used data from 49 African countries for the last 20 available years, i.e., from 2000 to 2019. Applying the fixed effects estimation method for panel data, we examined the health expenditures as aggregate total current spending, and also separately as domestic private, domestic public and external. Our analyses showed significant negative relationships between both total current and external (i.e., direct foreign transfers and foreign transfers distributed by a government) health spending and infant/under-5 mortality. Additionally, under-5 mortality is also significantly affected by domestic private spending. On the contrary, no significant relationship between neonatal mortality and any health expenditure was found. Previously performed studies claimed that domestic public spending decreases studied mortalities too. However, our results imply that the effect of domestic public spending has disappeared and transferred instead into external and private health funds. Thus, it is crucial to invest in these segments more to lessen...
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