A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation of the Effects of Public Health Subsidies for STD Testing.

This paper investigates, both theoretically and empirically, the private demand for sexually transmitted disease testing and for protection against infection with emphasis on testing for the AIDS virus (HIV) and on the effects of public subsidies for such testing on the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases. The authors discuss the theoretical conditions under which subsidizing testing either increases or decreases disease incidence and provide evidence on the empirical significance of those conditions. Copyright 1995, the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.