IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tse/wpaper/22243.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How do Roads Spread AIDS in Africa? A Critique of the Received Policy Wisdom

Author

Listed:
  • Djemaï, Elodie

Abstract

This paper empirically analyzes the influence of road proximity on HIV-infection using geographical data on road infrastructure and the Demographic and Health Surveys collected in six African countries. Firstly we show that living in proximity to a major road increases the individual risk of infection. This observed relationship is found to be sensitive to the use of the road and to be robust after correcting for potential selection bias related to the non random placement of people. Secondly, our findings reveal that road infrastructure improves the level of HIV/AIDS-knowledge and facilitates access to condoms, providing no support to the hypothesis that HIV-infection is purely due to ignorance and misfortune. Thirdly, we find that the increased risk of infection is driven by a higher likelihood of engaging in casual sexual partnerships that more than offsets the effect of the increased use of condoms.

Suggested Citation

  • Djemaï, Elodie, 2009. "How do Roads Spread AIDS in Africa? A Critique of the Received Policy Wisdom," TSE Working Papers 09-120, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    • Handle: RePEc:tse:wpaper:22243
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tse-fr.eu/sites/default/files/medias/doc/wp/dev/wp_dev_120_2009.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Elise Huillery, 2009. "History Matters: The Long-Term Impact of Colonial Public Investments in French West Africa," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 176-215, April.
    2. Anindya Sen & Brent Mizzen, 2007. "Estimating the Impact of Seat Belt Use on Traffic Fatalities: Empirical Evidence from Canada," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 33(3), pages 315-336, September.
    3. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/10262 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Evans, William N & Graham, John D, 1991. "Risk Reduction or Risk Compensation? The Case of Mandatory Safety-Belt Use Laws," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 4(1), pages 61-73, January.
    5. G.E. Battese & G.A. Tessema, 1993. "Estimation of stochastic frontier production functions with time‐varying parameters and technical efficiencies using panel data from Indian villages," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 9(4), pages 313-333, December.
    6. Peterson, Steven & Hoffer, George & Millner, Edward, 1995. "Are Drivers of Air-Bag-Equipped Cars More Aggressive? A Test of the Offsetting Behavior Hypothesis," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 38(2), pages 251-264, October.
    7. Fay, Marianne & Leipziger, Danny & Wodon, Quentin & Yepes, Tito, 2005. "Achieving child-health-related Millennium Development Goals: The role of infrastructure," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(8), pages 1267-1284, August.
    8. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/10262 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Jacoby, Hanan C, 2000. "Access to Markets and the Benefits of Rural Roads," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(465), pages 713-737, July.
    10. Battese, G. E. & Tessema, G. A., 1993. "Estimation of stochastic frontier production functions with time-varying parameters and technical efficiencies using panel data from Indian villages," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 9(4), pages 313-333, December.
    11. Straub, Stephane & Vellutini, Charles & Warlters, Michael, 2008. "Infrastructure and economic growth in East Asia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4589, The World Bank.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jean-Francois Maystadt & Gilles Duranton, 2014. "The development push of refugees," Working Papers 66910685, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
    2. Lucia Corno & Damien de Walque, 2012. "Mines, Migration and HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 21(3), pages 465-498, June.
    3. Ibrahim Kasirye, 2016. "HIV/AIDS Sero-prevalence and Socio-economic Status: Evidence from Uganda," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 28(3), pages 304-318, September.
    4. Jean-François Maystadt & Gilles Duranton, 2019. "The development push of refugees: evidence from Tanzania," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 19(2), pages 299-334.
    5. repec:dau:papers:123456789/7310 is not listed on IDEAS

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:dau:papers:123456789/7315 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. repec:dau:papers:123456789/7310 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. George E. Battese & Sohail J. Malik & Sumiter Broca, 1993. "Production Functions for Wheat Farmers in Selected Districts of Pakistan: An Application of a Stochastic Frontier Production Function with Time-varying Inefficiency Effects," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 32(3), pages 233-268.
    4. Ajibefun, Igbekele A., 2006. "Linking Socio-Economic and Policy Variables to Technical Efficiency of Traditional Agricultural Production: Empirical Evidence from Nigeria," 2006 Annual Meeting, August 12-18, 2006, Queensland, Australia 25535, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    5. Rajendran, Srinivasulu, 2014. "Technical Efficiency of Fruit and Vegetable Producers in Tamil Nadu, India: A Stochastic Frontier Approach," Asian Journal of Agriculture and Development, Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA), vol. 11(1), pages 1-17, June.
    6. Thiam, Abdourahmane & Bravo-Ureta, Boris E. & Rivas, Teodoro E., 2001. "Technical efficiency in developing country agriculture: a meta-analysis," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 25(2-3), pages 235-243, September.
    7. Antonio Nicita & Simona Benedettini, 2012. "The Costs of Avoiding Accidents.Selective Compliance and the 'Peltzman Effect' in Italy," Department of Economics University of Siena 631, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    8. Basanta R. Dhungana & Peter L. Nuthall & Gilbert V. Nartea, 2004. "Measuring the economic inefficiency of Nepalese rice farms using data envelopment analysis," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 48(2), pages 347-369, June.
    9. Anderson, D. Mark & Sandholt, Sina, 2016. "Booster Seats and Traffic Fatalities among Children," IZA Discussion Papers 10071, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Carpenter, Christopher S. & Stehr, Mark, 2008. "The effects of mandatory seatbelt laws on seatbelt use, motor vehicle fatalities, and crash-related injuries among youths," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 642-662, May.
    11. Djemaï, Elodie & Clark, Andrew E. & D’Ambrosio, Conchita, 2024. "Take the Highway? Paved roads and well-being in Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 183(C).
    12. Bae, Yong-Kyun, 2011. "Primary Seat Belt Laws and Offsetting Behavior: Empirical Evidence from Individual Accident Data," MPRA Paper 30443, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Anastassios Karaganis & Antonios Tassoulis, 2006. "Spatial Efficiency Analysis of Arable Crops in Greece," ERSA conference papers ersa06p616, European Regional Science Association.
    14. Anindya Sen & Brent Mizzen, 2007. "Estimating the Impact of Seat Belt Use on Traffic Fatalities: Empirical Evidence from Canada," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 33(3), pages 315-336, September.
    15. Anthony Baffoe‐Bonnie & Genti Kostandini, 2019. "Annual and cropping season environmental production conditions effects on smallholder technical efficiency in sub‐Saharan Africa: Evidence from Ethiopia," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 50(6), pages 779-791, November.
    16. Potter Joel M, 2011. "Estimating the Offsetting Effects of Driver Behavior in Response to Safety Regulation: The Case of Formula One Racing," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 7(3), pages 1-22, July.
    17. Zhilu Sun & Xiande Li, 2021. "Technical Efficiency of Chemical Fertilizer Use and Its Influencing Factors in China’s Rice Production," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-18, January.
    18. Tanira T. Kingi & Tom F. Kompas, 2005. "Communal Land Ownership and Agricultural Development: Overcoming Technical Efficiency Constraints Among Fiji’s Indigenous Sugercane Growers," International and Development Economics Working Papers idec05-11, International and Development Economics.
    19. Coelli, Tim J., 1995. "Recent Developments In Frontier Modelling And Efficiency Measurement," Australian Journal of Agricultural Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 39(3), pages 1-27, December.
    20. Elodie Djemai, 2017. "Roads and the Spread of AIDS in Africa," Working Papers DT/2017/16, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).
    21. Benedettini, Simona & Nicita, Antonio, 2012. "The costs of avoiding accidents: Selective compliance and the ‘Peltzman effect’ in Italy," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 256-270.
    22. Cassiano Bragagnolo & Humberto F. S. Spolador & Geraldo Sant’Ana de Camargo Barros, 2010. "Regional Brazilian Agriculture TFP Analysis: A Stochastic Frontier Analysis Approach," Economia, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics], vol. 11(4), pages 217-242.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    HIV/AIDS epidemic; spatial inequalities; risk taking;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O18 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tse:wpaper:22243. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/tsetofr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.