HIV-Related Risk Taking Behavior and Income Uncertainty : Empirical Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa.

This paper addresses the issue of the positive observed relationship be- tween GDP and HIV prevalence in Sub-Saharan Africa. We examine the role of the volatility of GDP per capita in lowering the incentives to invest in self-protection and, empirically, in the spread of the epidemic. Using a panel dataset of Sub-Saharan African countries over the 1990-2007 time pe- riod and a dynamic panel data framework, a more unstable GDP distribution is found to accelerate the spread of AIDS. The positive relationship between HIV prevalence and economic volatility is robust to the inclusion of additional control variables and to the de nition of the measure of GDP volatility.