Davor Mance – University of Rijeka, Faculty of Economics, Ivana Filipovića 4, Rijeka, Croatia
Nenad Vretenar – University of Rijeka, Faculty of Economics, Ivana Filipovića 4, Rijeka, Croatia
Jelena Gojković – University of Rijeka, Faculty of Economics, Ivana Filipovića 4, Rijeka, Croatia

DOI: https://doi.org/10.31410/ITEMA.S.P.2019.65

This paper deals with public health systems of European Union Member States. We try to
analyse and compare the public health budget allocation systems in existence in the EU. We analyse
their differences and try to explain where the differences come from. We concentrate on the impact
of differences in economic estimates in decision making on the allocation of scarce funds. We try to
answer the question whether countries with lower income per capita compensate the lack of funds,
lower capital endowment, and the impossibility to invest in equipment with larger labour endowment
or improvement in human capital. On contraire, we find that some of the former transition countries
experience a strong brain drain of medical personnel. Thus, former transition countries with relative
stronger health personnel endowments tend to lose their qualified labour force to the more capital-endowed
developed nations confirming the brain-drain hypothesis and refuting the hypothesis that labour
is a relatively immobile production factor.

Keywords

Public Health, Health Management Systems, Health Economics, Brain Drain.

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