Is the risk taking of HIV-infection influenced by income uncertainty? : Empirical Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper questions the positive relationship between HIV prevalence and income in Sub-Saharan Africa. In this paper, we hypothesize that a greater economic instability would reduce the incentives to engage in self-protective behaviors inducing people to increasingly take the risk of HIV-infection and hence causing a rise in HIV prevalence. We provide a simple model to stress on the effects of an increase in income risk in the incentives for protection. We test the prediction using a panel of Sub-Saharan African countries over the period 1980-2001. It is shown that the epidemic is widespread in countries that experience a great macroeconomic instability over the whole period. When introducing income instability, wealth is devoid of predictive power and the puzzle of the positive relationship between income and prevalence in Africa is lifted. Additional finding states that the risk taking of HIV-infection increases when the individuals are facing frequent and large crop shocks.HIV/AIDS epidemic; incentives; self-protection; macroeconomic instability; Sub-Saharan Africa

HIV-Related Risk Taking Behavior and Income Uncertainty : Empirical Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa.

This paper addresses the issue of the positive observed relationship be- tween GDP and HIV prevalence in Sub-Saharan Africa. We examine the role of the volatility of GDP per capita in lowering the incentives to invest in self-protection and, empirically, in the spread of the epidemic. Using a panel dataset of Sub-Saharan African countries over the 1990-2007 time pe- riod and a dynamic panel data framework, a more unstable GDP distribution is found to accelerate the spread of AIDS. The positive relationship between HIV prevalence and economic volatility is robust to the inclusion of additional control variables and to the de nition of the measure of GDP volatility.incentive; risk; HIV/AIDS prevention; Sub-Saharan Africa;

Is the risk taking of HIV-infection influenced by income uncertainty? : Empirical Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper questions the positive relationship between HIV prevalence and income in Sub-Saharan Africa. In this paper, we hypothesize that a greater economic instability would reduce the incentives to engage in self-protective behaviors inducing people to increasingly take the risk of HIV-infection and hence causing a rise in HIV prevalence. We provide a simple model to stress on the effects of an increase in income risk in the incentives for protection. We test the prediction using a panel of Sub-Saharan African countries over the period 1980-2001. It is shown that the epidemic is widespread in countries that experience a great macroeconomic instability over the whole period. When introducing income instability, wealth is devoid of predictive power and the puzzle of the positive relationship between income and prevalence in Africa is lifted. Additional finding states that the risk taking of HIV-infection increases when the individuals are facing frequent and large crop shocks

Is the risk taking of HIV-infection influenced by income uncertainty? : Empirical Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper questions the positive relationship between HIV prevalence and income in Sub-Saharan Africa. In this paper, we hypothesize that a greater economic instability would reduce the incentives to engage in self-protective behaviors inducing people to increasingly take the risk of HIV-infection and hence causing a rise in HIV prevalence. We provide a simple model to stress on the effects of an increase in income risk in the incentives for protection. We test the prediction using a panel of Sub-Saharan African countries over the period 1980-2001. It is shown that the epidemic is widespread in countries that experience a great macroeconomic instability over the whole period. When introducing income instability, wealth is devoid of predictive power and the puzzle of the positive relationship between income and prevalence in Africa is lifted. Additional finding states that the risk taking of HIV-infection increases when the individuals are facing frequent and large crop shocks

Effects of education on political engagement in rural Burkina Faso

Many African countries are both consolidating their democratic institutions and continuing to expand mass primary schooling. In this context, citizens may be interested in the broad general effect of education on political engagement. Recent social science work estimating this effect has not arrived at consensus, with researchers suggesting the relationship may be context dependent, and could vary from positive to negative. We apply an instrumental variable (IV) approach, using Afrobarometer surveys in Burkina Faso over the 2008-2019 period, merged with data on the timing of school establishment at the village level. Individual schooling attainment is instrumented by whether a school was established in the village of residence when the person was seven years old. The data is finer than recent papers that estimate the relationship using national-level quasi-experiments where education access changed across birth cohorts or where an indirect proxy measure of education access varied across regions and birth cohorts. We find that the relationship appears to differ by gender: men exhibit a substantial negative effect of education on engagement, while women exhibit no sizable relationship. The null effect for women may be due to low power, as there is less variation in education outcomes for women in rural areas. The results suggest that gender may be an important mediator of the direction and magnitude of the complex relationship between education and political engagement in polities with low overall levels of schooling

Risk Taking of HIV-Infection and Income Uncertainty: Empirical Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper questions the positive relationship between HIV prevalence and income in Sub-Saharan Africa. In this paper, we hypothesize that a greater economic instability would reduce the incentives to engage in self-protective behaviors inducing people to increasingly take the risk of HIV-infection and hence causing a rise in HIV prevalence. We provide a simple model to stress on the effects of an increase in income risk in the incentives for protection. We test the prediction using a panel of Sub-Saharan African countries over the period 1980-2001. It is shown that the epidemic is widespread in countries that experience a great instability in gross domestic product over the whole period. When introducing income instability, GDP per capita is devoid of predictive power and the puzzle of the positive relationship between income and prevalence in Africa is lifted. Additional finding states that the risk taking of HIV-infection increases when the individuals are facing frequent and large crop shocks

Smiling is a Costly Signal of Cooperation Opportunities: Experimental Evidence from a Trust Game

We test the hypothesis that "genuine" or "convincing" smiling is a costly signal that has evolved to induce cooperation in situations requiring mutual trust. Potential trustees in a trust game made video clips for viewing by potential trusters before the latter decided whether to send them money. Ratings of the genuineness of smiles vary across clips; it is difficult to make convincing smiles to order. We argue that smiling convincingly is costly, because smiles from trustees playing for higher stakes are rated as significantly more convincing, so that rewards appear to induce effort. We show that it induces cooperation: smiles rated as more convincing strongly predict judgments about the trustworthiness of trustees, and willingness to send them money. Finally, we show that it is a honest signal: those smiling convincingly return more money on average to senders. Convincing smiles are to some extent a signal of the intrinsic character of trustees: less honest individuals find smiling convincingly more difficult. They are also informative about the greater amounts that trustees playing for higher stakes have available to share: it is harder to smile convincingly if you have less to offer.

Smiling is a Costly Signal of Cooperation Opportunities: Experimental Evidence from a Trust Game

We test the hypothesis that "genuine" or "convincing" smiling is a costly signal that has evolved to induce cooperation in situations requiring mutual trust. Potential trustees in a trust game made video clips for viewing by potential trusters before the latter decided whether to send them money. Ratings of the genuineness of smiles vary across clips; it is difficult to make convincing smiles to order. We argue that smiling convincingly is costly, because smiles from trustees playing for higher stakes are rated as significantly more convincing, so that rewards appear to induce effort. We show that it induces cooperation: smiles rated as more convincing strongly predict judgments about the trustworthiness of trustees, and willingness to send them money. Finally, we show that it is a honest signal: those smiling convincingly return more money on average to senders. Convincing smiles are to some extent a signal of the intrinsic character of trustees: less honest individuals find smiling convincingly more difficult. They are also informative about the greater amounts that trustees playing for higher stakes have available to share: it is harder to smile convincingly if you have less to offer