Evguenii Zazdravnykh, HSE University, Saint Petersburg, Russia.
Graduate School of Management, St. Petersburg University, Saint-Petersburg, Russia.
Int J Health Econ Manag. 2024 Mar;24(1):81-105. doi: 10.1007/s10754-023-09353-0. Epub 2023 Apr 6.
The studies on the demand for healthcare in low- and middle-income countries rarely take into consideration the fact that many people spend their income on self-treatment and professional treatment. The estimation of the income elasticity of demand for self-treatment and professional treatment can show a more precise picture of the affordability of professional care. This paper contributes to the discussion around estimates of income elasticity of health spending and discussion whether professional care and self-treatment are close to a luxury good and inferior good respectively in a middle-income country. We apply the switching regression model to explain the choice between self-treatment and professional healthcare via estimates of the income elasticity. Estimates are made with the use of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey - Higher School of Economics (RLMS-HSE), a nationally representative survey. While individual expenditure on professional treatment is higher than that on self-treatment, our estimates show that expenses on professional treatment can be income inelastic except when spending on medicines prescribed by a physician that are elastic. The results also indicate that cost of self-treatment is income elastic. In all cases, the considered income elasticities are statistically insignificant between professional and self-treatment.
在中低收入国家，针对医疗保健需求的研究很少考虑到许多人将收入用于自我治疗和专业治疗的事实。自我治疗和专业治疗需求的收入弹性估计可以更准确地描绘出专业护理的负担能力。本文为围绕健康支出收入弹性的估计以及专业护理和自我治疗在中等收入国家分别接近奢侈品和劣等品的讨论做出了贡献。我们通过对收入弹性的估计，应用转换回归模型来解释自我治疗和专业医疗保健之间的选择。我们使用具有全国代表性的俄罗斯纵向监测调查-高等经济学院（RLMS-HSE）进行了估计。虽然个人专业治疗支出高于自我治疗支出，但我们的估计表明，除了医生开的弹性药物外，专业治疗支出可能是非弹性的。结果还表明，自我治疗费用具有收入弹性。在所有情况下，考虑到的收入弹性在专业治疗和自我治疗之间在统计学上均无显著差异。
