TY  - JOUR
AU  - Bloom,David E.
AU  - Mahal,Ajay S.
TI  - Does the AIDS Epidemic Really Threaten Economic Growth?
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 5148
PY  - 1995
Y2  - June 1995
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w5148
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w5148.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
David E. Bloom
Harvard School of Public Health
Department of Global Health and Population
665 Huntington Ave.
Boston, MA 02115
Tel: 617/432-0866
Fax: 617/432-6733
E-Mail: dbloom@hsph.harvard.edu
AB  - This study examines the claim that the AIDS epidemic will slow the pace of economic growth.  We do this by examining the association, across fifty-one developing and industrial countries for which we were able to assemble data, between changes in the prevalence of AIDS and the rate of growth of GDP per capita.  Our analysis uses well- established empirical growth models to control for a variety of factors possibly correlated with AIDS prevalence that might also influence growth.  We also account for possible simultaneity in the relationship between AIDS and economic growth. Our main finding is that the AIDS epidemic has had an insignificant effect on the growth rate of per capita income, with no evidence of reverse causality.  We also find evidence that the insignificant effect of AIDS on income per capita is qualitatively similar to an insignificant effect on wages of the Black Death in England and France during the Middle Ages and an insignificant effect on output per capita of influenza in India during 1918-19.
ER  -