Life expectancy at birth: A causal analysis of the health sector in spain

Abstract

Life expectancy at birth has become the main indicator of the performance of a country’s health system. From a causal point of view, there is a series of socio-economic indicators which affect life expectancy. The objective of this work is to determine the indicators which exhibit a unilateral or bilateral causal relationship with life expectancy, using the principal components analysis (PCA). Once selected these indicators, we will highlight, through the Dumitrescu-Hurlin version of the Granger causality test, those having a unidirectional causality relationship with life expectancy. Undoubtedly, our findings can provide suitable information which may be useful for the management of health resources from the point of view of maximizing social benefits.