Working Paper #2008-038
The economic impact of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa
In this paper, a simple general equilibrium model à la Solow is
developed to capture the impact of AIDS on economic growth. To this end,
a benchmark model due to Cuddington and Hancock (1994) is extended in
various directions. In particular, the sharply declining life expectancy
patterns are clearly re°ected in the enlarged model through a generic
Ben-Porath mechanism. AIDS-related health expenditures are incorporated
as well. Using up-do-date optimal forecasting methods, the model applied
to South Africa shows that while a relatively short term assessment
might not reveal any dramatic AIDS growth e®ect, the medium/long run
impact can be truly devastating. In particular, the heavy trends in
mortality and life expectancy currently induced by AIDS are shown to be
potentially at least twice more detrimen-tal for per capita economic
growth in the period 2020-2030 compared to 2000-2010.
- Keywords
-
- Epidemics
- life expectancy
- economic Growth
- AIDS
- JEL codes
-
- C61
- C62
- O41
- UNU-MERIT
- Working
- Papers
- ISSN
- 1871-9872
Cite this as
APA 7th ed.Azomahou, T. T., Boucekkine, R., & Diene, B. (2008). The economic impact of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa (UNU-MERIT Working Paper No. 2008-038). UNU-MERIT. https://unu-merit.nl/publications/working-papers/abstract/?id=3456