Abstract:
This study has the general objective of assessing the impact of HIV / AIDS on economic growth. More specifically, the study attempts to measure the impact of HIV / AIDS on Mozambique's economic growth. To achieve this goal, the neoclassical model of economic growth developed by Mahal (2004) is estimated. The dependent variable is economic growth as measured by the real GDP growth rate. The test variable is HIV / AIDS as measured by the number of annual infections among the adult population. The estimation of the model used balanced panel data for the 11 provinces of Mozambique and the period between 2000 and 2010. The other explanatory variables included in the model are malaria, government expenditure in the health sector, human capital and the workforce, all of which have a statistically significant impact on economic growth in the country. The results of the estimation of the fixed effects model indicate that in Mozambique, the HIV / AIDS epidemic has a negative (as expected) effect on economic growth, but is statistically insignificant. On the other hand, the results of the estimation of the random effects model indicate that in Mozambique, the HIV / AIDS epidemic has a positive (contrary to expected) effect on economic growth, but is statistically insignificant. Based on the results presented above, this study concludes that HIV / AIDS has a statistically insignificant impact on Mozambique's economic growth. In real terms, this insignificance is translated by the fact that a variation of 1% of infected people causes, on average, 48.28 million meticais of the real national GDP and 3.84 million meticais per province. This finding suggests that more empirical and diversified studies should be developed to explain the popular negative relationship between HIV / AIDS and economic growth. The negative effect of the epidemic, transmitted by the sign of its coefficient, suggests that the Government of Mozambique should bet on preventive health policies combined with therapeutic policy to reduce the number of deaths among the workforce.(TRADUÇÃO NOSSA)
