Pro-cyclical modelling of cancer mortalities based on macroeconomic factors

Abstract

This paper tests for the procyclicality of the cancer mortalities and the economic regimes for the various regions, herein outlined as per the World Bank rankings as either high income, upper middle income, lower middle income or low-income countries. Previous studies have been carried out to examine the relationship between business cycles and cancer mortalities for advanced economies, less is known about the relationship existing between the existing macroeconomic variables and the cancer mortalities for the less developed countries. This study thus assemble unique panel data set containing country-specific crude cancer mortalities, the GDP per capita, the share of the GDP spent on health(GDPEH), the annual cancer incidences, the 5-year prevalence rates and the disability-adjusted life years lost as a result of cancer. The results show a procyclical relationship between cancer mortalities and the economic growths a finding consistent with that of (Chen, et a!., 20 17), whereas there exists a countercyclical relationship between cancer mortalities and the investment in the health sector