Effects of private car ownership, economic growth and medical services on healthcare expenditure in China: a dynamic panel data analysis

Vehicle exhaust emissions are identified as one of the main determinants of air pollution and play an important role in the environmental sustainable improvement of countries. This research utilizes a panel data of 30 Chinese provinces during the period between 1997 and 2012 to examine the existence of inverted U-shaped relationship between public healthcare expenditure per capita and private car ownership across geographical regions (east, middle and west China) employing panel generalized method of moments estimates for robust estimates. The findings also show the income per capita significantly and positively impacts on health expenditure per capita at the national level. The other results indicate that sulfur dioxide emissions and people over age 65 significantly increase healthcare expenditure per capita except the western region; soot emissions have a significantly positive impact on public health expenditure per capita for only the whole country and the western region; the number of doctors per capita may decrease public health expenditure per capita caused by environmental pollution. These results have important policy implications for promotion of new energy vehicles and for improving air quality and medical and health services.