Male Circumcision, Peer Effects, and Risk Compensation Presenter: Booyuel Kim Co-authors: Hyuncheol Bryant Kim, Cristian Pop-Eleches, Jaehyun Jung
Abstract
This paper studies impact of male circumcision on risky sexual behaviors and the role that peers play in the decision and long-term consequences of being circumcised. We provided a free circumcision offer with transport support based on a two-step randomized design within classrooms in secondary schools in Malawi. Our analysis yields three main results. First, we show that the transportation intervention substantially increased the demand for male circumcision for the students assigned to the treatment group. Second, we find evidence of positive peer effects in the decision to get circumcised among untreated students. Finally, we find evidence of risk compensation using biomarkers of sexually transmitted infections for those who got circumcised due to the intervention, but not for those induced by peer effects. We discuss the implication of these results for research on HIV prevention as well as peer effects.