ABSTRACT
Part II of this book looks at the way that economists understand the impact of AIDS. This chapter begins by explaining the role of history in our understanding of the impact of disease. It will show that different readings of the effects of epidemic disease in the past (such as the plague that ravaged medieval Europe) led economists to disagree about the impacts of widespread mortality and morbidity. However, these arguments over history have modern-day implications — a lack of agreement about the way we should account for disease.
