Natural resources and the spread of HIV/AIDS: curse or blessing?

Olivier Sterck

No 2014-12, CSAE Working Paper Series from Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford

Abstract: This paper answers two questions: “What impact have natural resources had on the spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic so far?” and “What role can natural resource rents play in order to finance the long-run response to HIV/AIDS?” Using a panel dataset, de Soysa and Gizelis (2013) provided evidence that oil-rich countries are more deeply affected by the HIV epidemic. They concluded that government of resource-rich countries failed to implement effective public policies for dealing with the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In this paper, I show that their results are not robust and are spurious because the dependent variables and explanatory variables considered in their analysis are non-stationary. After correcting for these issues, I find no specific relationship between resource rents and the spread of HIV/AIDS. I conclude by discussing the potential of resources rents for financing the long-term liability brought about by the HIV/AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa.

Keywords: HIV/AIDS; natural resources; resource curse; epidemics; spurious regression; non-stationarity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E6 I1 I18 Q32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-env, nep-hea and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Natural resources and the spread of HIV/AIDS: Curse or blessing? (2016)
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