Assessing the Importance of Health Sector Using The Partial Extraction Method, the Case Study of Iranian Economy

There is no doubt that improving the level of social welfare, meeting the basic needs and achieving to high economic growth rate are the important aims of policy makers. On one hand, coinciding with the year in which codification and approval of 6th development program is on the agenda of parliament and government and on the other hand, lack of financial resources may lead to policy makers have encountered with the issue of identifying key sectors and evaluating importance of economic sectors. In this paper, for the first time we have studied the consequences of 10 percent shutdown in the health sector supply on output and value added of other sectors. For answering this question, we have applied partial extraction method which proposed by Dietzenbacher and Lahr (2013). In addition, we have investigated the dependency of health sector on other economic sectors by means of 10 percent partial extraction of sector’s supplies. Updated domestic Input-Output Tables in 2011 which aggregated in 19 sectors is the basis of calculation. The results show that first; the economy’s total value added was decreased 0,43 percent due to partial extraction (10 percent) of health sector. Second, public and private health sectors in comparison with other subsectors of health are more important because, the total value added of the economy was diminished 0,03 and 0,02 percent because of the reduction in their deliveries. Third, following partial extraction of health sector and its subsectors, the largest decreases in value added take place in the medical instruments, water, electrics and gas, other services and business services while public affairs and education and oil and gas, had the least changes in the value added that reflected low dependency of mentioned sectors on health sector. Fourth, the health sector is most dependent on the manufacturing sector and its value added decreased 0,3 percent by partial extraction on manufacturing sector.