Does Governance Matter in the Fight Against HIV/AIDS Epidemic? Evidence from Cross-Country Analysis

Abstract:     
In this paper I attempt to investigate the role of governance - as measured by government effectiveness, control of corruption, and rule of law - on the HIV prevalence. Thus, the paper argues that countries whose governments are highly ranked according to these various induces of the quality of institutions tend to do better in reducing HIV prevalence. In an empirical analysis of cross-section data of 90 countries, I find that different aspects of the quality of institutions from a country (corruption, law, government effectiveness) are always significant regardless of the other control variables that are used in the least square, quantile, and instrumental estimation. These effects are more important in sub-Saharan Africa which is the epicenter of the epidemic. The paper highlights the importance of good governance for the effectiveness of HIV/AIDS programs in the fight against the epidemic.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 16

Keywords: HIV/AIDS, Governance, Quantile regression

JEL Classification: I18, H51, 011

working papers series