ECON 368(F) The Economics of HIV/AIDS

Peter Piot, Executive Director of UNAIDS, describes the AIDS pandemic as an `earthquake in slow motion' -as big a threat to world peace as terrorism. It is also widely understood as the biggest challenge to economic development in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as presenting a potential disaster for China, India, Ukraine and Russia. Fully understanding the roots, longterm effects, and solutions to this pandemic requires economic analysis; it also challenges many of our existing economic models and pushes us to new understanding.
In this class we will consider the roots of the AIDS pandemic in poverty, `unhealthy' economies, and gender structures. We will discuss competing models predicting the economic impact of the disease, on levels ranging from rural households through corporations to national macroeconomies. We will look at the significance of intellectual property rights in determining the development of, and subsequent access to, different treatments. And we will consider the economics of treatment rollout, including deeply embedded gender issues and debates around the cost effectiveness of different interventions-how should governments and international agencies choose how many resources to allocate to treatment as compared to different kinds of prevention?
Format: seminar. Requirements are a short paper, a research paper, and participation in class discussion, including presenting research in class.
Prerequisites: Economics 251 and 252. Enrollment limit: 25 (expected: 25). Preference given to Economics majors.

Hour: HONDERICH