title: Natural resources and the spread of HIV/AIDS: Curse or blessing?
abstract: This paper answers two questions: "What impact have natural resources had on the spread of the HIV 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 covering 137 countries from 1990 until 2008, de Soysa and Gizelis (2013) provided evidence in Social Science & Medicine that oil-rich countries are more deeply affected by the HIV and TB epidemics. They concluded that government of resource-rich countries failed to implement effective public policies for dealing with the epidemics. In this paper, I show that their results are (1) not robust, (2) based on an inappropriate choice of dependent variable and (3) spurious because series are non-stationary. After correcting for these issues, I find no robust relationship between resource rents and the spread of HIV and TB. The paper concludes by emphasizing the potential of natural resources rents for financing the long-term liability brought about by the HIV/AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa.
authors.affiliation: CSAE - University of Oxford, Department of Economics, Manor Road, Oxford, OX1 3UQ, United Kingdom. Electronic address: olivier.sterck@economics.ox.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Olivier
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Sterck
mesh_terms: D014943:Global Health; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006801:Humans; D010578:Petroleum / Q000600:supply & distribution*
chemical_list: D010578:Petroleum
keywords: Epidemics; HIV/AIDS; Natural resources; Non-stationarity; Resource curse; Spurious regression