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.