Are health care expenditures and personal disposable income characterised by asymmetric behaviour? Evidence from US state-level data

Abstract

This paper examines the asymmetric behaviour of health care expenditure and disposable income in the 50 US states over the period 1966-2009 using nonparametric Triples test techniques. The results suggest that for 23 US states, real per capita health expenditures are characterized by asymmetric behaviour, while real per capita personal disposable income series exhibit asymmetric behaviour in 7 US states. Therefore, the main findings question the adequacy of linear models when modelling the behaviour of these two series.