The impacts of the refugee population, renewable energy consumption, carbon emissions, and economic growth on health expenditure in Turkey: new evidence from Fourier-based analyses

Abstract

Health expenditures are affected by different macroeconomic variables. This study aims to examine the impact of renewable energy consumption, carbon emissions, the refugee population, and economic growth on Turkey’s health expenditures from 1975 to 2019. For this purpose, firstly, the stationarity orders of the variables were examined with the Fourier-based stationarity test. The long-run effects of the variables on health expenditures were also examined using the Fourier-based cointegration test. The results show that there is a long-run relationship between health expenditures and the explanatory variables. In addition, long-run coefficients were calculated, and it was concluded that carbon emissions and the refugee population increased health expenditures while renewable energy consumption decreased. The causality results indicate that there is unidirectional permanent causality from health expenditures to renewable energy consumption and economic growth and bidirectional permanent causality between carbon emissions and health expenditures. Overall, adopting environmentally and renewable energy-friendly policies and controlling the refugee population are essential policy tools in terms of health expenditures.