The Impact of Okun Misery Index on Out-of-pocket-payments in the Iranian Healthcare System

Abstract

Introduction: One criterion to measure the achievement of a government's performance is stability and decreasing the misery index that is the sum of inflation and unemployment. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the impact of misery index on patients' out-of-pocket-payments in the Iranian healthcare system. Methods: This paper has used time-series data from 2000 to 2016 and it used three methods to examine the relationship between variables. First, the Dickey-Fuller test was used to evaluate the stationary of variables. Second, the Toda-Yamamoto causality test was used to test causality between variables. Third, Auto-Regressive Distributed Lags (ARDL) was used to test the long-run relationship. Analyzing data was conducted by Eviews 9 software.Results: The results showed that there was a bi-directional causal relationship between the misery index and the out-of-pocket-payments of patients in the health system. Also, increasing 1 unit of misery index increased 1.33 units of out-of-pocket-payments. The correction error coefficient was -0.435 that meant this amount was adjusted per period. In other words, it lasted more than 2 years and less than 3 years that the Nonequilibrium points converge to their long-run points of the relationship.Conclusion: Implementing appropriate policies in order to reduce unemployment and inflation rate can decline the out-of-pocket-payments in the Iranian healthcare system.

Economic Discomfort and Wellbeing in Nigeria: Evidence from dynamic ARDL simulation

“…Empirical literature over the years have investigated the effect of misery on economic growth, wellbeing, and consumer satisfaction. For example, Rezapour, Ghorbani, Mahmoud, and Faradonbeh, (2020), investigated the implication of the Okun's misery index on out -of -pocket health care system in Iran between 2000 and 2016. The autoregressive distributive lagged (ARDL) model was employed to determine the short and long run impact.…”