How Beliefs About HIV Status affect Risky Behaviors: Evidence From Malawi, Second Version

Aureo de Paula, Gil Shapira () and Petra Todd

PIER Working Paper Archive from Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania

Abstract: This paper examines how beliefs about own HIV status affect sexual behavior. Risky behavior is measured as the propensity to engage in extramarital affairs or not use condoms. The empirical analysis is based on 2004 and 2006 data from the Malawi Diffusion and Ideational Change Project. Controlling for endogeneity between beliefs and risk-taking, we find that downward revisions in the belief of being HIV positive lead to a lower propensity to engage in extramarital affairs but have no effect on condom use. We show that the estimates provide a lower bound when there is measurement error in reported extra-marital affairs.

Keywords: Beliefs; AIDS; Malawi (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 52 pages
Date: 2008-10-03, Revised 2008-12-02
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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https://economics.sas.upenn.edu/sites/default/file ... ng-papers/08-041.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: How Beliefs about HIV Status Affect Risky Behaviors: Evidence from Malawi, Sixth Version (2011)
Working Paper: How Beliefs about HIV Status Affect Risky Behaviors: Evidence from Malawi, Seventh Version (2011)
Working Paper: How Beliefs about HIV Status Affect Risky Behaviors: Evidence from Malawi, Second Version (2010)
Working Paper: How Beliefs about HIV Status Affect Risky Behaviors: Evidence from Malawi, Fifth Version (2010)
Working Paper: How Beliefs about HIV Status Affect Risky Behaviors: Evidence from Malawi (2008)
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