The Impact of HIV Prevalence on Schooling Achievement in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from the SACMEQ Assessments

This paper investigates the impact of HIV prevalence on schooling achievement. By associating data of schooling test results, for seven countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, with regional measures of HIV prevalence for 70 different regions, I find evidence that a general increase in HIV prevalence of about 1%, lowers general test score results of about 1% of a standard deviation from the mean. Endogeneity in the HIV variable is addressed by instrumenting HIV prevalence with male circumcision rate