Carbon Dioxide Emissions, Health Spending and Economic Growth: Dynamic Relationship in Islamic Countries

The relationship between carbon dioxide emissions, health spending and GDP growth is one of the issues that economists have been focusing on in recent decades. Investigating the factors affecting health spending due to its significant increase in the last decade, as well as the factors affecting environmental pollution and the relationship between these two variables on economic growth are also factors that are important in today's world. To this end, this study examines the relationships between the three mentioned variables for selected Islamic countries.

In order to examine the relationships between these variables were done via the econometric method, generalized moment model for panel data of 11 selected Islamic countries including I.R of Iran, Kuwait, Turkey, Malaysia, Jordan, Oman, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia, for the period from 2000 to 2014.

The results of the pattern estimation showed that there is a two-way relationship between GDP and carbon dioxide emissions and GDP and health expenditures. The bilateral relationship between health spending and GDP was also confirmed. On the other hand, the relationship between health expenditure and carbon dioxide emissions was confirmed.

Considering the two-way relationship between health expenditures and economic growth, it can be concluded that increasing government spending can improve health and thus increase labor productivity and increase economic growth. Carbon dioxide emissions have increased health spending and have reduced economic growth, and politicians need to pay more attention to environmental pollution to prevent excessive health spending and reduced economic growth.