Averting Mortality, Enabling Mobility: Health and Economic Impacts of HIV Treatment at Scale

Huan Wang, Victoria Baranov, Sarah Dickerson and Jeremy Barofsky

No 21553, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: Antiretroviral therapy (ART) for HIV/AIDS has expanded rapidly across low-income countries since 2000, generating large gains in life expectancy. Exploiting spatial and temporal variation in ART availability, this paper examines the health and economic consequences of ART introduction across a comprehensive set of outcomes in rural Malawi, a low-income setting with high HIV prevalence. We find that ART substantially reduces prime-age mortality. Although these health gains raise individual prime-age labor supply, total household labor supply and household earnings are unchanged. We show that this divergence reflects the outward migration of prime-age household members, particularly men. Consistent with this mechanism, households receive sizable increases in remittances. Our findings identify migration as an important, but previously overlooked channel through which health shapes household economic outcomes.

Keywords: Malawi (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I15 I18 I21 O15 O18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-05
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