The Spatial Spillover Effect of China's Government Health Expenses on the Regional Economy: Empirical Analysis Based on the Spatial Panel Model

Government health expenses not only affects the local economic development through direct and indirect mechanisms but also affects the economic development of neighboring regions through the spatial spillover effect. This paper investigates the spatial correlation and spatial agglomeration between government health expenses and regional gross domestic product in China from 2005 to 2015. On this basis, it further analyzes the impact of government health expenses on regional gross domestic product by constructing a spatial Durbin model. The empirical results show that China's government health expenses has a significant positive spatial spillover effect on regional economic development, and the indirect effect caused by the spatial spillover is equivalent to the direct effect. Therefore, if spatial factors are not taken into account, the impact effect will be overestimated to a large extent.