The Political Economy of Antiretroviral Drugs

Anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) are the only medications capable of extending the lives of those with AIDS. How they are distributed is, therefore, an important concern for both normative and positive reasons. The paper tests various potential theories about the distribution of scarce resources and provision of public goods from political science and economics against new data on the distribution of ARVs under the South African national rollout plan. Strong evidence is found in support of theories that predict that voter interests and knowledge drive the distribution of resources in democracies.