On World AIDS Day, let’s revisit Emily Oster’s brilliant deconstruction of the conventional wisdom around the disease’s epidemics and its policy implications.
Using Economics 101 tools, Oster reaches these stunning conclusions:
- The AIDS problem would perhaps disappear by itself if we concentrate on solving the developing world’s most pressing economic problems such as basic shelter, clean water and infant mortality rates. This would give people a higher life expectancy, and therefore a higher incentive for conducting safe sex.
- The success of the “ABC campaign” during the 1990′s in Uganda, based on encouraging people to “Abstain, Be faithful and use Condoms,” might have been due to a sharp decrease in the country’s exports rather than its effectiveness on people’s behavior.
A remarkable example of unconventional thinking as a force that can change the world for the better.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I don’t get it. Why would a decrease in exports have anything to do with AIDS? I can see it only as a consequence of higher mortality.
Martina, watch the video, and you’ll see what the argument is all about