Browsing by Author "Atakorah, Yaw Boateng"

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    Trade openness, population health status and health financing in Sub-Saharan Africa
    (MAY, 2016 ) Atakorah, Yaw Boateng
    Improvements in population health and health financing in SSA has been slow and relatively poor when compared with other regions (Middle East and North Africa and East Asia and Pacific) of the world. The study employed a balanced panel data for fortytwo (42) Sub-Saharan African countries over the period 1995-2013. Population health status was measured by total life expectancy at birth, infant mortality rate and under-five mortality rate. Fixed effect (FE), Random Effect (RE) and one step system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) models were employed in estimating the relationships. The empirical results across all the estimation techniques show that trade openness improves population health. Specifically, the results showed a positive and significant relationship between trade openness and life expectancy, negative and significant relationship between trade openness and infant mortality rate and negative relationship between trade openness and under-five mortality rate. The study also showed a positive relationship between trade openness and health financing. The study further found that countries whose openness exceeds the optimal level of openness experience deteriorated health and reduced health financing. The study recommends that countries whose openness is below the optimal openness should continue to open up to trade to enjoy the benefits of improved access to health products and medical knowledge spill over