S5 Ep2: Deep Focus: How healthcare affects the macroeconomy

Bruegel senior fellow Zsolt Darvas joins Sean Gibson on ‘The
Sound of Economics’ to expound on the themes of a Policy
Contribution on the macroeconomic implications of healthcare
systems, which he has co-written with Nicolas Moës, Yana
Myachenkova and David Pichler.


This episode is the first in a new Bruegel podcast series, ‘Deep
Focus’, looking specifically at Bruegel research and elaborating
on the insights contained therein, in conversation with the
authors. 


The effects that healthcare systems can impose upon economies are
pronounced and far-reaching. The health sector alone accounts for
a significant portion of output and employment in the EU, even
before we look at the pharmaceutical companies conducting
research and development towards healthcare. From a fiscal point
of view, health is one of the most expensive items on a
government’s list of expenses. 


In this analysis, the scholars measured the efficiency of each EU
healthcare system – and of several from beyond the EU’s borders.
The results illustrate that improving healthcare outcomes is not
as simple as investing more and more money in the system. In this
podcast, we discuss some of the areas where real differences can
be made both to the health of the general public and to the cost
incumbent upon governments.


For further reading, consider our blog post digging into the
details of the ongoing lack of German public investment, written
by Alexander Roth and Guntram Wolff.