Climate Change, Environmental Degradation, And Public Health Spending: Drivers Of Life Expectancy In Central Asian Economies

The paper explores how long-term climate change, environmental degradation, investing in people health, and several macroeconomic indicators can influence the life expectancy of Central Asian economies between the years 2004-2022. With an unbalanced panel data, where the major source of data is the World Development Indicators, the cross-sectional dependence, slope heterogeneity, and the mixed orders of integration are considered in the analysis. There is utilization of a strong second-generation panel econometric model that consists of the Pesaran CD test, CIPS unit root test, slope heterogeneity test, and the Westerlund cointegration test, and then the Mean Group (MG) and Augmented Mean Group (AMG) estimators. The diagnostic tests confirm the existence of cross sectional dependence, heterogeneous slopes and long run cointegrating relationship of the variables. The experimental results show that the MG estimator does not provide significantly meaningful results, but the AMG estimator can identify stronger and policy-related correlations. To be more exact, the negative influence of environmental degradation (CO2 emissions), annual temperature change, and spending on health of the population is statistically significant, but the positive influence of foreign direct investment has a substantial impact on health outcomes. The impact of economic growth and trade openness, however, do not indicate significant impacts in the long run. All in all, the findings demonstrate the significance of the common shocks and unobserved heterogeneity control, as well as the vital value of the environmental quality, effective health expenditure, and foreign capital to the life expectancy enhancement in Central Asia.