"Mortality Risk and Human Capital Investment: The Impact of HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa," Review of Economics and Statistics, 93(1), February 2011, pp. 1-15. Erratum.
Abstract: Over the past several decades, the HIV/AIDS epidemic has dramatically altered patterns of morbidity and mortality in sub-Saharan Africa, with potential consequences for human capital investment and economic growth. Using data from Demographic and Health Surveys for fifteen countries in sub-Saharan Africa, I estimate the relationship between regional HIV prevalence and the change in individual human capital investment over time. Consistent with a simple model of human capital investment incorporating mortality risk, I find that areas with higher levels of HIV experienced relatively larger declines in schooling.
"Child Health and Neighborhood Conditions: Results from a Randomized Housing Voucher Experiment" (with Lisa Sanbonmatsu), Journal of Human Resources, 45(4), Fall 2010, pp. 840-864.
Abstract: Using data from the Moving to Opportunity randomized housing voucher experiment, we estimate the direct effects of housing and neighborhood quality on child health. We show that, five years after random assignment, housing mobility has little impact on overall health status, asthma, injuries, and body mass index. The few effects that we observe imply that being offered a voucher through the program might worsen some aspects of child health, despite significant improvements in housing quality, nutrition and exercise, and neighborhood safety. Our results are inconsistent with the hypothesis that neighborhood conditions explain much of the widely-cited income gradient in child health.
"Life (Evaluation), HIV/AIDS, and Death in Africa" (with Angus Deaton and Robert Tortora), in International Differences in Well-Being, edited by Ed Diener, John F. Helliwell, and Daniel Kahneman. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Also NBER Working Paper Number 14637.
Abstract: We use data from the Gallup World Poll and from the Demographic and Health Surveys to investigate how subjective wellbeing (SWB) is affected by mortality in sub-Saharan Africa, including mortality from HIV/AIDS. The Gallup data provide direct evidence on Africans' own emotional and evaluative responses to high levels of infection and of mortality. By comparing the effect of mortality on SWB with the effect of income on SWB, we can attach monetary values to mortality to illuminate the often controversial question of how to value life in Africa. Large fractions of the respondents in the World Poll report the mortality of an immediate family member in the last twelve months, with malaria typically more important than AIDS, and deaths of women in childbirth more important than deaths from AIDS in many countries. A life evaluation measure (Cantril's ladder of life) is relatively insensitive to the deaths of immediate family, which suggests a low value of life. There are much larger effects on experiential measures, such as sadness and depression, which suggest much larger values of life. It is not clear whether either of these results is correct, yet our results demonstrate that experiential and evaluative measures are not the same thing, and that they cannot be used interchangeably as measures of "happiness" in welfare economics.
"HIV/AIDS and Fertility," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 1(3), July 2009, pp. 170-194.
Abstract: This paper studies the response of fertility to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa. I use repeated cross sections of the Demographic and Health Surveys for 12 countries in sub-Saharan Africa to examine this question empirically. Using individual birth histories from these data, I construct estimates of the regional total fertility rate over time. In a difference-in-differences approach, I compare regional HIV prevalence to changes in total fertility rates from the 1980s to the present. My results suggest that HIV/AIDS had very little impact on fertility, both overall and in a sample of HIV-negative women.
"The Gradient in Sub-Saharan Africa: Socioeconomic Status and HIV/AIDS," Demography, 45(2), May 2008, pp. 303-322.
Abstract: Using data from the Demographic and Health Surveys for Burkina Faso (2003), Cameroon (2004), Ghana (2003), Kenya (2003), and Tanzania (2003), I investigate the cross-sectional relationship between HIV status and socioeconomic status. I find evidence of a robust positive education gradient in HIV infection, showing that, up to very high levels of education, better-educated respondents are more likely to be HIV-positive. Adults with six years of schooling are as much as three percentage points more likely to be infected with HIV than adults with no schooling. This gradient is not an artifact of age, sector of residence, or region of residence. With controls for sex, age, sector of residence, and region of residence, adults with six years of schooling are as much as 50% more likely to be infected with HIV than those with no schooling. Education is positively related to certain risk factors for HIV, including the likelihood of having premarital sex. Estimates of the wealth gradient in HIV, by contrast, vary substantially across countries and are sensitive to the choice of measure of wealth. |
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