Impact of Health Sector Public-Private Partnership on Effective Health Care Delivery for Economic Growth in Nigeria: an Error Correction Model

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to empirically examine the impact of health sector public-private partnership on effective health care delivery for economic growth in Nigeria. The study employed time series data, econometric tools and error correction model. Econometric tools were used to test for unit root and co-integration. While the error correction model was used in the data analysis. From the test, the data were found to be stationary at various levels. The paper used Ordinary Least Squares in the estimation of the economic variables by means of multiple regression model. The research findings show that health sector public-private partnership and effective health care delivery have positive impact on economic growth in Nigeria. The results clearly show that the public and private expenditures have strong impact on economic growth in Nigeria and statistically significant in explaining variation in real gross domestic product in Nigeria. In addition, the results show that the Public expenditure on health, private expenditure on health, life expectancy rate and interest rate in Nigeria are strong determinants of health sector public-private partnership in Nigeria. While per capita income was found to have less impact health sector publicprivate partnership in Nigeria thereby affecting the economic growth in Nigeria. The per capita income of citizens determine their well being and the interest rate determine the private investment in the health sector. If the interest rate is high the private investors can access funds for health sector investment and if the per capita income is low it will affect health sector investment. From the study also one of the major problems of health sector public-private partnership in Nigeria are inconsistent health policies and the poor implementation of health sector public-private partnership policies in Nigeria. Therefore, the paper recommends that government and its agencies should strengthen the health sector public-private partnership policies in Nigeria and design evaluation mechanism to evaluate the health sector public-private partnership policies implementation for effective health care delivery in Nigeria. Finally, government should create job opportunities for the citizens that will improve their income earns and thereby increasing the per capita income of the people, health sector public-private partnership and effective health service delivery for economic growth in Nigeria