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Business and Economics > Public Finance

You are looking at 1 - 10 of 78 items for :

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  • Analysis of Health Care Markets x
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Cover Technical Notes and Manuals
IMF Engagement on Health Spending Issues in Surveillance and Program Work
Mauricio Soto
,
Geremia Palomba
,
Carolina Bloch
,
Nick Carroll
,
Tohid Atashbar
,
Deeksha Kale
,
Baoping Shang
,
Kiichi Tokuoka
,
Ruud de Mooij
, and
Guillaume Chabert
IMF country teams have become increasingly engaged on health spending issues in surveillance and program work, and more so since the COVID-19 pandemic. The primary objectives of health spending are to improve health outcomes and provide protection to households against high financial costs of health care. The Fund’s engagement on health spending issues is guided by an assessment of its macro-criticality, with the scope and purpose of engagement varying across countries and depending on whether it occurs in surveillance or program contexts. This technical note discusses how to assess the macro-criticality of health spending and reviews appropriate policy responses. The design and implementation of macro-critical health reforms often require specific sectoral knowledge and experience. Thus, this note emphasizes the importance of collaborating with development partners on health policy issues.
Keywords:
Fiscal Policy; Health spending; Spending adequacy; Spending Efficiency; Fiscal Sustainability; policy reform; data IMF Library; IMF engagement; policy option; health system; Health care spending; Health care; Health care reform; Global
Cover Selected Issues Papers
The Fiscal Cost of Aging in Belgium: Pensions and Healthcare
Mr. Jean-Jacques Hallaert
Belgium faces a fiscal consolidation challenge at a time when the fiscal cost of aging—primarily related to pension and health outlays—is mounting. Pension spending will increase relatively fast unless a combination of measures related to pension generosity and retirement eligibility are put in place. Potential efficiency gains are large in the health sector and could absorb part of the fiscal and reorganization costs related to an aging population.
Keywords:
Belgium; Aging; Fiscal cost of aging; Pensions; Healthcare; reorganization cost; cost of aging; cost pressure; fiscal cost; healthcare cost; Pension spending; Europe; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Rationalizing Pharmaceutical Spending
Manuel García-Goñi
Pharmaceutical spending accounts for a large share of health spending worldwide. While pharmaceuticals are an indispensable component of effective modern health systems, and their benefits in terms of increasing life expectancy and improving quality of life are unquestionable, the large variation in pharmaceutical spending across countries suggests that there may be large efficiency gains to be realized. This paper reviews the existing literature and databases on the level and composition of pharmaceutical spending and estimates potential efficiency gains from increased use of generics. It also reviews how countries organize the procurement and tendering of pharmaceuticals and the implications for spending. Finally, the paper identifies the various channels through which spending inefficiencies can arise and identifies reform options for reducing pharmaceutical spending while ensuring quality health outcomes.
Keywords:
Pharmaceutical spending; pharmaceutical policy; generics; biosimilar; procurement; economic evaluation; volume share; percentage value share; share of generic; efficiency gain; Health care; Health care spending; Consumption; Global; Europe
Cover IMF Working Papers
Patterns and Drivers of Health Spending Efficiency
Ms. Mercedes Garcia-Escribano
,
Pedro Juarros
, and
Ms. Tewodaj Mogues
Demands for ramping up health expenditures are at an all-time high. Countries’ needs for additional health resources include responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, closing gaps in achieving the Sustainable Development Goal in health in most emerging and developing countries, and serving an ageing population in advanced economies. Facing limited fiscal space for raising health spending focuses policymakers’ attention on ensuring that resources are used efficiently. How sizable are the potential gains—in terms of freeing up resources and delivering better health outcomes—from improving health spending efficiency? How has efficiency evolved over the past decade? What can policymakers do to boost it? This paper estimates health spending efficiency across countries using bias-corrected data envelopment analysis and finds sizable differences in efficiency across countries, in particular among emerging and developing countries compared to advanced economies. The examination of the evolution of efficiency reveals that important efficiency gains have been made in the majority of countries. The paper also explores some of the key drivers of efficiency and finds that lower income inequality, less corruption, and health interventions oriented at expanding population access to basic health services are associated with greater efficiency.
Keywords:
health sector; expenditure efficiency; universal health coverage; health outcome; health spending efficiency; health spending Efficiency; health intervention; health sector; health resource; Health care spending; Health care; Expenditure efficiency; Income; Global; Western Hemisphere
Cover IMF Working Papers
The State and Your Hard-Earned Money: A Survey on Moral Perspectives in Public Finance
Mr. Paolo Mauro
This note provides an overview of recent studies that have begun to investigate how differing moral perspectives shape attitudes toward tax and spending policies. Recent advances in evolutionary moral psychology and their application to survey-based economic analysis yield promising insights. Understanding the moral underpinnings of various groups’ views may help policymakers design and make the case for measures that can muster broader support.
Keywords:
Moral foundations; moral philosophy; public finance; redistribution; public debt; taxation; political economy; surveys; copyright Page; loyalty foundation; economic analysis yield; hard-earned money; public policy; Income; Income distribution; Health care; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Unintended Effects From the Expansion of the Non-Contributory Health System in Peru
Mr. Jose L. Torres
Over the last two decades, the Peruvian government has made great efforts to improve access to health care by significantly augmenting the coverage of the non-contributory public health care system Seguro Integral de Salud (SIS). This expansion has a positive impact on welfare and public health indicators, as it limits the risk of catastrophic health-related costs for previously uninsured individuals and allows for the appropriate treatment of illnesses. However, it also entails some unintended consequences for informality, tax revenues, and GDP, since a few formal agents are paying for a service that the majority of (informal) agents receive for free. In this paper, we use a general equilibrium model calibrated for Peru to simulate the expansion of SIS to quantify the unintended effects. We find that overall welfare increases, but informality rises by 2.7 percent, while tax revenues and output decrease by roughly 0.1 percent. Given the extent of the expansion in eligibility, the economic relevance of these results seems negligible. However, this occurs because the expansion of coverage was mostly funded by reducing the spending per-insured person. In fact, we find larger costs if public spending is increased to improve the quality of service given universal coverage.
Keywords:
care system Seguro Integral de Salud; IMF working paper Western Hemisphere department; unintended effect; health shock; health risk; avg. health spending; non-contributory health system SIS; Self-employment; Health care; Health care spending; Insurance; South America; Caribbean
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Mali: Request for Second Tranche of Debt Service Relief Under the Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust-Press Release; and Staff Report
International Monetary Fund. African Dept.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the August 2020 coup d’état have disrupted more than half a decade of strong economic performance, during which growth averaged 5 percent.1 Growth is projected to decline from 5 percent to -2 percent in 2020 both on account of the pandemic (reflecting a slowdown in external demand, travel, and FDI, as well as the impact of uncertainty and reduced mobility on domestic demand) and of post-coup disruptions in trade, transport, economic and financial flows following the sanctions imposed by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Inflation accelerated slightly in recent months but is expected to remain below 2 percent, while the current account deficit is projected to narrow due to higher gold prices (main export) and lower oil prices (main import). Risks around the outlook are exceptionally high in light of the uncertainty surrounding the political transition, the impact of the sanctions on trade and overall activity, and continued deterioration in the security situation. Weak social safety nets amid high informality, food insecurity and a fragile healthcare system exacerbate challenges.
Keywords:
ISCR; CR; IMF lending tracker; tranche of debt service relief; eligible debt service; six-month tranche; expenditure report
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Mali: Request for Second Tranche of Debt Service Relief Under the Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust-Press Release; and Staff Report
International Monetary Fund. African Dept.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the August 2020 coup d’état have disrupted more than half a decade of strong economic performance, during which growth averaged 5 percent.1 Growth is projected to decline from 5 percent to -2 percent in 2020 both on account of the pandemic (reflecting a slowdown in external demand, travel, and FDI, as well as the impact of uncertainty and reduced mobility on domestic demand) and of post-coup disruptions in trade, transport, economic and financial flows following the sanctions imposed by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Inflation accelerated slightly in recent months but is expected to remain below 2 percent, while the current account deficit is projected to narrow due to higher gold prices (main export) and lower oil prices (main import). Risks around the outlook are exceptionally high in light of the uncertainty surrounding the political transition, the impact of the sanctions on trade and overall activity, and continued deterioration in the security situation. Weak social safety nets amid high informality, food insecurity and a fragile healthcare system exacerbate challenges.
Keywords:
ISCR; CR; IMF lending tracker; tranche of debt service relief; eligible debt service; six-month tranche; expenditure report
Cover IMF How To Notes
How to Operationalize IMF Engagement on Social Spending during and in the aftermath of the COVID-19 Crisis
Irene Yackovlev
,
Ms. Zuzana Murgasova
,
Fei Liu
,
Gohar Minasyan
, and
Ke Wang
How to Operationalize IMF Engagement on Social Spending during and in the aftermath of the COVID-19 Crisis
Keywords:
FADHTN; HTN; spending; financing; COVID; country; policy measure; social spending; spending needs; IMF team; program document; COVID-19; Health care spending; Health care; Fiscal sustainability; Social assistance spending; Central Africa; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Kingdom of the Netherlands - Netherlands: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
This Selected Issues paper analyzes the wage moderation in the Netherlands. Wage growth has been subdued in the Netherlands despite tighter labor market conditions in recent years. Besides various cyclical factors, rising labor market flexibility may have contributed to the wage moderation in the Netherlands. Like other advanced economies, slower productivity growth and lower expected inflation are important drivers to the wage moderation in the recent years. In addition to that, remaining slack in the labor market also weighed on wage growth. Going forward, wages are expected to grow faster given higher expected inflation, foreign wage spillovers, and tightening labor market.
Keywords:
ISCR; CR; cost; pay; Netherlands; wage growth; ETS price; cost containment toolkit; containment challenge; Phillips curve; house price; agreement law; housing supply; Housing prices; Housing; Wages; Health care; Health care spending; Global