A study on life expectancy in Turkey

Life expectancy, in general, is one of the crucial determinants of a country’s health status. This is particularly valid for the countries where industrialization has been improving. Turkey is one of the leading countries within this category, and there are limited number of studies about causal relationship between life expectancy and its determinants. Therefore, the aim of this study is to explore causal relationship between life expectancy and its determinants during the period of 1975-2014. In order to analyze the causal relationship between life expectancy at birth and its economic and environmental determinants; gross domestic product per capita, food production index, CO2 emissions (kt), and urbanization were identified as factors influencing life expectancy at birth. Regarding the data obtained, the causal relationship between life expectancy and its determinants was investigated employing the Granger causality test based on VECM for a sample of Turkey. The results indicated that although the variables used in the model have had a long run relationship (i.e., GDP per capita, food production index, CO2 (kt), and urbanization), the urbanization is the only Granger cause of life expectancy at birth for Turkey.

Keywords:

Life expectancy, urbanization, cointegration Granger causality,

PDF

___

Amjad A, Ahmad K (2014). "The impact of socio-economic factors on life expectancy for sultanate of Oman: An empirical analysis".
Anand S, Ravallion M (1993). Human development in poor countries: on the role of private incomes and public services. J Econ Perspect 7(1): 133-150.
Baltagi BH, Moscone F, Tosetti E (2011) Medical Technology and the Production of Health Care. Discussion Paper No. 5545.
Baltagi BH, Moscone F, Tosetti E (2012). Medical technology and the production of health care. Empir Econ, 42(2), 395-411.
Bayati M, Akbarian R, Kavosi Z (2013). Determinants of life expectancy in Eastern Mediterranean region: a health production function. IJHPM 1(1): 57.
Bergh A, Nilsson T (2010). Good for living? On the relationship between globalization and life expectancy. World Dev 38(9); 1191-1203.
Coile C, Diamond P, Gruber J, Jousten A (2002). Delays in claiming social security benefits. J Public Econ 84(3): 357-385.
Crémieux PY, Ouellette P, Pilon C (1999). Health care spending as determinants of health outcomes. Health Econ 8(7): 627-639.
Delavari S, Zandian H, Rezaei S, Moradinazar M, Delavari S, Saber A, Fallah R (2016). Life Expectancy and its socioeconomic determinants in Iran. Electron Physician 8(10): 3062.
Dickey DA, Fuller WA (1981). Likelihood ratio statistics for autoregressive time series with a unit root. Econometrica 1057-1072.
Engle RF, Granger CW, Rice J, Weiss A (1986). Semiparametric estimates of the relation between weather and electricity sales. J Am Stat Assoc 81(394): 310-320.
Fayissa B, Gutema P (2005). The Determinants of Health Status in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The American Economist, 49(2), 60-66
Grosse RN, Auffrey C (1989). Literacy and health status in developing countries. Annu Rev Public Health 10(1): 281-297.
Gujarati DN (1995). Basic Econometrics, (3-rd ed.). McGraw-Hill International Editions. New York.
Halicioglu F (2011). Modeling life expectancy in Turkey. Econ Model 28(5): 2075-2082.
Husain AR (2002). Life expectancy in developing countries: a cross-section analysis. BDS 28(1/2): 161-178.
Johansen S (1992). Cointegration in partial systems and the efficiency of single-equation analysis. J Econom 52(3): 389-402.
Kabir M. (2008). Determinants of life expectancy in developing countries. JDA 185-204.
Kakwani N (1993). Performance in living standards: An international comparison. J Dev Econ 41(2): 307-336.
Messias E (2003). Income inequality, illiteracy rate, and life expectancy in Brazil. Am J Public Health 93(8): 1294-1296.
Mohan R, Mirmirani S (2007). An Assessment of OECD Health Care System Using Panel Data Analysis. Bryant University.
OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). Available online: https://data.oecd.org/healthstat/life-expectancy-at-birth.htm.
Phillips PC, Perron P (1988). Testing for a unit root in time series regression. Biometrika, 75(2): 335-346.
Phillips PC, Ouliaris S (1988). Testing for cointegration using principal components methods. JEDC 12(2-3): 205-230.
Preston SH (1980). Causes and consequences of mortality declines in less developed countries during the twentieth century. In Population and economic change in developing countries (pp. 289-360). University of Chicago Press.
Rogers RG, Wofford S (1989). Life expectancy in less developed countries: socioeconomic development or public health. J Biosoc Sci 21(2): 245-252.
Rogot E, Sorlie PD, Johnson NJ (1992). Life expectancy by employment status, income, and education in the National Longitudinal Mortality Study. Public Health Rep 107(4): 457.
Shaw JW, Horrace WC, Vogel RJ (2005). The determinants of life expectancy: an analysis of the OECD health data. South Econ J 768-783.
Taban S (2006). Turkiye’de saglık ve ekonomik buyume arasındaki nedensellik iliskisi. Sosyo Ekonomi 2(4): 31-46.
Thornton J (2002). Estimating a health production function for the US: some new evidence. Appl Econ 34(1): 59-62.
Wilkinson RG (1992). Income distribution and life expectancy. BMJ 304(6820): 165.
Zhang J, Zhang J, Lee R (2001). Mortality decline and long-run economic growth. J Public Econ 80(3): 485-507.