Does Life Expectancy, Death Rate and Public Health Expenditure matter in sustaining Economic growth under COVID-19: Empirical Evidence from Nigeria?

Abstract

Good Health is said to be a life asset globally, health and economic growth are correlated making it a fundamental factor for sustainable economic growth. This position resonates the disposition of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals-3 (UNSDG’s). The current health pandemic that has plagued the global of which the global south-Nigeria is not insulated from is the premise for this empirical investigation. The present study relies on recent annual time-series data to conceptualize the hypothesized claim via Pesaran’s Autoregressive distributed lag techniques. Empirical findings from the bounds test trace long-run relationship between public health expenditure and economic growth over the study span. However, unlike previous studies, we introduce life expectancy and death rate in the model. Although health expenditure is not significant, empirical results show that a 1% increase in life expectancy and death rate increases and decreases economic growth by 3.85% and 1.84% respectively. This suggests the need for the Health Policymakers in Nigeria to implement active policies that reduce death rate which is a blueprint for active engagement in the face of a global pandemic such as COVID-19. Other vital policies are also recommended.