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Do democracies perform worse during pandemics? Evidence from 2020

Author

Listed:
  • Yuyang He

    (University College Dublin)

  • Dominik Naeher

    (University of Goettingen)

Abstract

Existing evidence in the emerging literature studying the performance of different political regimes in handling the Covid-19 pandemic is mixed and inconclusive. This paper contributes new insights by using a country-level difference-in-differences estimation strategy to study the effects of democracy on different socio-economic outcomes during the first year of the pandemic. We find that democracies suffered stronger reductions in GDP growth rates and larger increases in unemployment rates than autocracies. However, the better performance of autocracies in these economic indicators does not seem to translate into higher levels of citizens' self-reported happiness. Unlike previous studies, we find that both types of political regimes featured similar increases in mortality rates, on average, in 2020.

Suggested Citation

  • Yuyang He & Dominik Naeher, 2022. "Do democracies perform worse during pandemics? Evidence from 2020," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 42(3), pages 1681-1687.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-22-00200
    as

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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Democracy; Public health; Covid-19; Pandemic; Difference-in-differences estimation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H1 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • P4 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Other Economic Systems

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