"People think it’s easy to contract HIV. That’s a good thing, right? Maybe not."

That’s the title of my guest post on the World Bank’s Development Impact blog, describing my job market paper. Here’s a bit of the introduction:

People are afraid of HIV. Moreover, people around the world are convinced that the virus is easier to get than it actually is. The median person thinks that if you have unprotected sex with an HIV-positive person a single time, you will get HIV for sure. The truth is that it’s not nearly that easy to get HIV – the medical literature estimates that the transmission rate is actually about 0.1% per sex act, or 10% per year.

One way of interpreting these big overestimates of risks is that HIV education is working. […] The classic risk compensation model says this should be causing reductions in unprotected sex.

Unfortunately, the risk compensation story doesn’t seem to be reflected in actual behavior – at least not in sub-Saharan Africa, where the HIV epidemic is at its worst. […] If people are so scared, why don’t they seem to be compensating away from the risk of HIV infection? I tackle that question in my job market paper, “The Effect of HIV Risk Beliefs on Risky Sexual Behavior: Scared Straight or Scared to Death?” My answer is surprising.

You can read the whole thing on their site by following this link. My post is part of their annual Blog Your Job Market Paper series, which features summaries of research from development economics Ph.D. students on the job market. People who follow this blog should check out that series, which has featured some really awesome research this year. More generally, Development Impact is by popular acclamation the best development-focused blog out there; I read every post.