Country-level longitudinal data at three-year intervals over 1990--2004 are used to analyze the factors affecting emigration of physicians from Sub-Saharan countries and the effects of this medical brain drain on life expectancy and number of deaths due to AIDS. Data are compiled on emigrating African physicians from 16 receiving Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. A comprehensive longitudinal database is developed by merging the medical brain drain variables with recent data on HIV prevalence rates, public health expenditures, physicians' wages, and economic and demographic variables. A triangular system of equations is estimated in a random effects framework using five time observations for medical brain drain rates, life expectancy, and number of deaths due to AIDS, taking into account the interdependence of these variables. Lower wages and higher HIV prevalence rates are strongly associated with the brain drain of physicians from Sub-Saharan African to OECD countries. In countries in which the HIV prevalence rate exceeds 3 percent, a doubling of the medical brain drain rate is associated with a 20 percent increase in adult deaths from AIDS; medical brain drain does not appear to affect life expectancy. These findings underscore the need to improve economic conditions for physicians in order to retain physicians in Sub-Saharan Africa, especially as antiretroviral treatment becomes more widely available. Copyright The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / the world bank. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org, Oxford University Press.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Contact details of provider: Postal: Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK Fax: 01865 267 985 Email: Web page: http://wber.oxfordjournals.org/