Economics Without Money; Sex Without Gender: A Critique of Philipson and Posner's "Private Choices and Public Health: The AIDS Epidemic in an Economic Perspective"

''Economics Without Money; Sex Without Gender'' critiques Tomas Philipson and Richard Posner's neoclassically-based model of sexual ''trades'', which argues that ''market'' mechanisms will be largely sufficient to control the AIDS epidemic. As feminist economists have pointed out, such neoclassically-based models rest upon strong assumptions regarding the availability of information, the partners' egotism, the absence of extra-economic coercion, and the ability of all parties to exit the market. In so doing, these models ignore the ways in which political, social, and cultural inequalities (e.g., race, gender, class, and nationality) may systematically bias market negotiations, including those over safe sex. The paper critiques the model's neoclassical assumptions and its prescriptions for public policy in the areas of epidemiology, HIV testing, and public subsidies for HIV/AIDS education and AIDS-related medical research. Finally, it discusses the impact of these inequalities on safe-sex negotiations in the case of the US low-income bi/heterosexual women, especially women of color, for whom AIDS is now the leading cause of death.