A comparison of the efficiency of health systems in providing life expectancy

Adam Lenart, Max Planck Odense Center and University of Southern Denmark
Virginia Zarulli, Max Planck Odense Center

The role of the national health systems is to provide health for their citizens but each country achieves it up to a different degree. The health systems are heterogeneous not only in their efficiency but in their funding, organization and management too. As it is difficult to measure their efficiency in absolute terms, the countries can be compared with each other. The relative efficiency of health systems can be measured by the life expectancy that they provide by taking education level and their funding structure into account. Based on data coming from the HMD, GGS, OECD and WHO, data envelopment analysis is used to explore the relative efficiencies of the countries.