本文應用共積理論，以預期壽命做爲健康的替代變數，除考慮所得之外，並納入具有國家特性因素之醫療保健支出爲解釋變數，探討台灣地區在 1958 年至 1995 年這段期間，預期壽命與經濟成長的關係。本文的結果發現：（1）若不考慮其它因素，所得對預期壽命的影響效果爲顯著正向關係；而所得對醫療保健支出之影響也同樣顯著爲正。(2)同時考慮所得及醫療保健支出對預期壽命的影饗時，所得與預期壽命之關係不甚密切，故雖然經濟持續成長，但若要提高國人的平均壽命，政府應致力於醫療保健支出的有效提供。(3)預期壽命的所得彈性及醫療保健支出彈性皆小於1，而若忽略醫療保健支出的影響，將使所得彈性高估。(4)預期壽命與所得之間存在雙向因果關係，而醫療保健支出僅單向影響預期壽命，所得則僅單向影響醫療保健支出。

This paper investigates the cointegration relationship between in­come, life expectancy and country-specific factor, with life expectancy and public health spending representing substitution variables for health and country-specific factors, respectively. The empirical study is con­ducted over a 38-year period from 1958 to 1995. The paper's main find­ings include the following: (i) other things being equal, the effect of in­come on life expectancy and public health spending are significant and positively correlated; (ii) given a lack of any significant correlation between income and public health spending on life expectancy, govern­ments should deliberate the effectiveness of supporting policies that increase public health spending to improve life expectancy; (iii) Income elasticity for both life expectancy and public health spending are less than 1, and as such, income elasticity tends to be overestimated without considering public health spending; and (iv) a feedback effect exists between life expectancy and income. Consequently, public health spend­ing has a unidirectional causality on life expectancy, as does income on public health spending.