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IZA Discussion Paper No. 16829
February 2024
Does Increasing Public Spending in Health Improve Health? Lessons from a Constitutional Reform in Brazil
Michel Szklo, Damian Clarke, Rudi Rocha

We examine the link between public spending in health and health outcomes by leveraging differential exposure to a health spending reform prompted by Brazil's 29th Constitutional Amendment, which mandated municipalities to spend at least 15% of their budget on health. We map dynamic effects on health care spending, inputs, access, outputs and outcomes. For municipalities initially spending below the 15% threshold, we find (a) large increases in health spending specifically, driven by administrative spending, infrastructure investment, and human resources; (b) a resulting greater supply of personnel, primary care coverage, and municipal hospitals; and (c) reductions in infant mortality rates, in particular for deaths during the neonatal period. While we find substantial cost increases and lower mortality elasticities compared with previous correlational parameters, benefits still exceed costs provided any VSL greater than US$764 thousand. Our results contribute to the literature by providing one of the first well-identified causal parameters of the relationship between public spending in health and health outcomes, by documenting the links in the chain connecting government health expenditure to health outcomes, and by considering spillovers across space and sectors.

Communications
Mark Fallak
mark.fallak@liser.lu
+352 585-855-526
World of Labour
Olga Nottmeyer
olga.nottmeyer@liser.lu
+352 585-855-501
Network Coordination
Christina Gathmann
christina.gathmann@liser.lu

The IZA@LISER Network is a global community of scholars dedicated to excellence in labor economics and related fields, now coordinated at the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) following its transition from Bonn.

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