Considerations on the economic impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic: Religious beliefs, ethnic diversity and epidemiological factors that explain the spread of the disease

This dissertation aims to quantify the effect of the burden of a disease on economic performance in a cross-section of countries and its main goal is to obtain estimates of the effect of HIV prevalence on the growth rate of real GDP per capita between 1990 and 2004 that are not affected by the presence of simultaneity. This goal requires instrumental variables that are correlated with changes in the prevalence of HIV but are otherwise unrelated with the error term of the growth equation. The instrumental variables employed in this dissertation are a set of economic, social and epidemiological determinants of the HIV infection.;This doctoral thesis consists of three different chapters that build up the interrelationship between HIV/AIDS prevalence, human capital and economic performance. The first chapter reviews the current literature on economic growth and the role of health in output determination as well as presents empirical evidence on the burden of disease, using a multivariate framework.;The results of the first chapter sustain the view that human capital in the form of health is an important component of the economic activity.;The second chapter provides support to our original hypothesis that the HIV/AIDS epidemic has lowered the rate of growth of real GDP per capita for the chosen sample of countries during the period analyzed. Using controls commonly applied in empirical studies and instrumenting for the main determinants of HIV/AIDS prevalence, the estimates for our parameters are robust and significantly different from zero, suggesting that one additional case of HIV per 1,000 inhabitants per year decreases the average rate of income growth, which is consistent with other findings in the existing literature.;The third chapter compares the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Latin America and Muslim nations in order to explain some of the factors that influence the rapid spread of the diseases within and across countries. In our econometric analysis, being Muslim (proxy for male circumcision, reduce consumption of alcohol and sexual practices) as well as ethnic diversity predicted the national HIV prevalence.;The theoretical framework developed and the particular methodology utilized in this thesis demonstrates the two-way relationship between economic performance and health status and serves a starting point of discussion to analyze the burden of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on economic growth.