Applied Statistics - Eric Werker 

 This week, the Applied Statistics Workshop will present a talk by Eric Werker of the Harvard Business School.  Professor Werker received his Ph.D. from the Harvard Economics Department in 2005.  His research focuses on the economics of security in developing economies, including studies of forced migration and refugee camps, and he received an NBER Pre-doctoral Fellowship in the Economics of National Security.  Professor Werker will present a talk entitled " Male Circumcision and the Impact of AIDS in Africa ."   The presentation will be at noon on Wednesday, November 9 in Room N354, CGIS North, 1737 Cambridge St. Lunch will be provided. The abstract of the paper follows on the jump: 


  
 Theories abound on the possible impact of AIDS on economic growth and savings in Africa yet there have been surprisingly few empirical studies to test the mixed predictions. In this paper, we examine the impact of the AIDS epidemic on African nations through 2003 using the male circumcision rate to identify plausibly exogenous variation in HIV prevalence. Though medical researchers are still in debate over whether lack of male circumcision can lead to increased susceptibility of contracting HIV, the statistical correlation between the two is compelling. We assemble national circumcision rates for African nations and find that they are both a strong and robust predictor of HIV/AIDS prevalence and uncorrelated with other determinants of economic outcomes. Two-stage least squares regressions do not reveal that AIDS has had any measurable impact on economic growth in African nations, however we do find that AIDS has had considerable effect on the structure of the economy and on humanitarian outcomes such as undernutrition.