Behavioural Response to the AIDS

This paper presents both conventional panel data estimates and estimates of the deep parameters of a dynamical theoretical model of response to the HIV+/AIDS epidemic. Given beliefs over current and future probabilities of infection per contact, the theoretical model predicts the distribution of number of diierent sexual partners selected and the proportion of people who are monogamous or celibate. Using a panel survey of sexual behavior among men in San Francisco during the eighties, the structural parameters of the model are estimated using the method of maximum likelihood.