The Impact of Health Expenditure on COVID-19 mortality

Abstract

The present study investigates the degree to which countrywide health expenditures as a measure of pandemic preparedness reduce mortality from COVID-19, using data on 96 countries of the world. A statistically significant negative effect of higher health expenditure on expected mortality is found for low-income countries. This effect for middle- and high-income countries is insignificant. Leading threats to the internal validity of this study are omitted variable bias and sample selection bias. Some ways in which this study can be built upon are suggested.