Master of Public Policy
Master of Public Affairs
Master of Development Practice
Doctoral Program
Global and Executive Programs
Undergraduate Programs
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion
Student Groups
Alumni
Directories
Faculty
Publications
Working Papers
Centers
News Center
Policy Initiatives
For Students
For Employers
Career Events
Employment Statistics
Client-based Projects
About GSPP
Events
Make a Gift
Find a Program
Find a Faculty Member
Find a Center
The Effect of Male Incarceration Dynamics on AIDS Infection Rates Among African-American Women and Men
Johnson, Rucker and Steven Raphael (2009) “The Effect of Male Incarceration Dynamics on AIDS Infection Rates Among African-American Women and Men,” Journal of Law and Economics, 52(2):251-293.
Abstract
In this paper, we investigate the potential connection between incarceration dynamics and AIDS infection rates, with a particular emphasis on the black-white AIDS rate disparity. Using caselevel data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, we construct a panel data set of AIDS infection rates covering the period 1982 to 1996 that vary by year of onset, mode of transmission, state of residence, age, gender, and race/ethnicity. Using data from the U.S. Census, we construct a conforming panel of male and female incarceration rates. We use this panel data to model the dynamic relationship between the male and female AIDS infection rates and the proportion of men in the age/state/race-matched cohort that are incarcerated. We find very strong effects of male incarceration rates on both male and female AIDS infection rates. The dynamic structure of this relationship parallels the distribution of the incubation time between HIV infection and the onset of full-blown AIDS documented in the medical and epidemiological literature. These results are robust to explicit controls for (race-specific) year fixed effects and a fully interacted set of age/race/state fixed effects. Our results reveal that the higher incarceration rates among black males over this period explain the lion’s share of the racial disparity in AIDS infection between black women and women of other racial and ethnic groups. The magnitude and significance of these effects persist after controlling for measures of crack cocaine prevalence and flow rates in and out of prison. In a separate analysis, we exploit the occurrence of system-wide state prison overcrowding litigation as an instrumental variable for the flow rate of prison releases. We find short-run increases in prison release rates that were induced by final court decisions on relief of prisoner overcrowding resulted in significant increases in subsequent AIDS infection rates among women and blacks, manifesting 5-10 years following the increase of prison releases.