Effect of Information and Communication Technology and Renewable Energies on Health Costs in Iran

Many studies have examined the relationship between economic growth, environmental pollution, and health expenditures by combining different variables. However, the role of ICT and renewable energy consumption in health expenditures has been overlooked. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the dynamic links between health expenditures, environmental pollution, economic growth, information and communication technology and renewable energy consumption in Iran.

This descriptive-analytical and applied study was performed using time series data extracted from the World Bank and Iran Statistics Center from 1981 to 2019 for Iran. In this study, the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model to evaluate the long-term and short-term dynamic, unit root tests and diagnostic tests CUSUM and CUSUMQ and Canonical Co-Integrating Regression (CCR) Dynamic least squares (DOLS), and fully modified least squares (FMOLS) have been used to validate the results of ADRL estimates in Eviews12 software.

The results of ARDL estimation method showed that in the long run, carbon dioxide emissions and economic growth have a positive effect on health expenditures with a coefficient of 0.829 and 1.065, respectively. Renewable energy consumption with coefficient -0.0808 was a significant negative role in reducing health expenditures. The coefficient of -0.286 obtained for the information and communication technology variable at the level of 95% indicates a reduction in health expenditures in parallel with the development of information and communication technology. Short-term results also showed that COE with a coefficient of 0.193 has a positive effect on HE. In addition, EG has a positive effect on HE with a coefficient of 0.828. Also, ICT and REC with coefficients of -0.199 and -0.080 have a negative effect on HE. CUSUM and CUSUM squares confirmed the stability of the parameters and CCR, DOLS and FMOLS regressions confirmed the results of ADRL model.

Increasing economic growth and carbon dioxide emissions had a positive effect and the consumption of renewable energy and information and communication technology had a short-term and long-term negative effect on health expenditures; Therefore, policies to maintain sustainability, reduce environmental pollution, focus on renewable energy projects, as well as invest in information and communication technology equipment and infrastructure will be beneficial.