Title: Convergence analysis of the sources of healthcare funding: an empirical analysis

Authors: Tiffany Hui-Kuang Yu, David Han-Min Wang, Yu-Wei Wu

Addresses: Department of Public Finance, Feng Chia University, 100 Wenhwa Road, Taichung, Taiwan 40724, ROC. ' Department of Accounting, Feng Chia University, 100 Wenhwa Road, Taichung, Taiwan 40724, ROC. ' Department of Public Finance, Feng Chia University, 100 Wenhwa Road, Seatwen, Taichung, Taiwan 40724, ROC

Abstract: The healthcare expenditures in Taiwan and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries have significantly increased over recent years. The governments of these countries are facing a funding crisis in healthcare. Their healthcare systems have also come under increasing financial pressure as healthcare demand rises. To shed light on the issue of healthcare funding, this paper performs cluster analysis and a convergence test on the sources of healthcare funding for Taiwan and the OECD countries. The empirical results find that some countries with similar healthcare systems in accordance with sources of healthcare funding are converging together as their principal sources of healthcare funding display convergence trends.

Keywords: cluster analysis; convergence tests; healthcare funding; Taiwan; OECD; funding sources.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBHR.2009.024229

International Journal of Behavioural and Healthcare Research, 2009 Vol.1 No.2, pp.200 - 208

Published online: 30 Mar 2009 *

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