Impact of Income Inequality on Health and Education in Africa: The Long run Role of Public Spending with Short Run Dynamics

Abstract In this paper we empirically investigated the long-run behavior of income inequality on the pattern of major social sector elements like health and education in African continent. In this context we have used a data set for 31 African countries for the period of 1980-2017. Our empirical model amalgamated with the rationality of theoretical underpinning claims that income inequality adversely affects health and education both in Short-run and long-run. However, it also claims that in the presence of efficient state intervention in the form of investment in both health and education unambiguously can better-off health and education scenarios in long-run, although the curse of income disparity remains with uphold in short-run. Apart from this, the present study also finds the threshold levels of government investments are required to make the process of better-off more sustainable for both health and education in the presence of income inequality in Africa. These results could be important for policymaking to boost health, education in Africa under the cloud of income disparity.