IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pgph00/0001157.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Effects of corruption and income inequality on the reported number of COVID-19 cases and deaths: Evidence from a time series cross-sectional data analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Atikur R Khan
  • Sumaiya Abedin
  • Md Mosiur Rahman
  • Saleheen Khan

Abstract

Corruption-income inequality nexus is likely to affect the healthcare services, which in turn affect a country’s ability to suppress an epidemic. Widespread corruption in public sectors may influence the data inventory practices to control the recording and sharing of official statistics to avoid political disturbance or social problems caused by an epidemic. This empirical study examines the effects of income inequality, data inventory, and universal healthcare coverage on cross-country variation in reported numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths in the presence of corruption in public sectors. Daily numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths of selected 29 countries are integrated for the first 120 days of the epidemic in each country. COVID-19 dataset is then integrated with a dataset of different indices. Fixed effect panel model is applied to explore the effects of corruption perception, income inequality, open data inventory practice, and universal health coverage on the daily numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths per million. Income inequality, corruption perception and open data inventory are found to significantly affect the number of confirmed cases and deaths. Countries with alarming income inequality are found to report 39.89 more COVID-19 cases per million, on average. Under a lower level of corruption, countries with lower level of open data inventory are expected to report 74.31 more COVID-19 cases but 1.43 less deaths per million. Given a higher level of corruption, countries with lower level of open data inventory are expected to report lower number of COVID-19 cases and deaths. Corruption demonstrates a significant influence on the size of the epidemic in terms of the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths. A country with higher level of corruption in public sector along with lower levels of open data inventory is expected to report lower number of COVID-19 cases and deaths.

Suggested Citation

  • Atikur R Khan & Sumaiya Abedin & Md Mosiur Rahman & Saleheen Khan, 2022. "Effects of corruption and income inequality on the reported number of COVID-19 cases and deaths: Evidence from a time series cross-sectional data analysis," PLOS Global Public Health, Public Library of Science, vol. 2(11), pages 1-10, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pgph00:0001157
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgph.0001157
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgph.0001157
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pgph.0001157&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pgph.0001157?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lesley Chiou & Catherine Tucker, 2020. "Social Distancing, Internet Access and Inequality," NBER Working Papers 26982, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Kwabena Gyimah-Brempong, 2002. "Corruption, economic growth, and income inequality in Africa," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 3(3), pages 183-209, November.
    3. Kobayashi, Yoshiharu & Heinrich, Tobias & Bryant, Kristin A., 2021. "Public support for development aid during the COVID-19 pandemic," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    4. Adiguzel, Fatih Serkant & Cansunar, Asli & Corekcioglu, Gozde, 2020. "Truth or Dare? Detecting Systematic Manipulation of COVID-19 Statistics," Journal of Political Institutions and Political Economy, now publishers, vol. 1(4), pages 543-557, November.
    5. Sheng Bin & Gengxin Sun & Chih-Cheng Chen, 2019. "Spread of Infectious Disease Modeling and Analysis of Different Factors on Spread of Infectious Disease Based on Cellular Automata," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(23), pages 1-16, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Antonio Andres & Carlyn Ramlogan-Dobson, 2011. "Is Corruption Really Bad for Inequality? Evidence from Latin America," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(7), pages 959-976.
    2. Anindya Ghose & Beibei Li & Meghanath Macha & Chenshuo Sun & Natasha Ying Zhang Foutz, 2020. "Trading Privacy for the Greater Social Good: How Did America React During COVID-19?," Papers 2006.05859, arXiv.org.
    3. Alimi, R. Santos, 2018. "Growth effect of government expenditures in West African countries: A nonlinear framework," MPRA Paper 99108, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Mar 2019.
    4. Ndiaye Cheikh Tidiane, 2019. "Corruption, Investment and Economic Growth in WAEMU Countries," International Journal of Economics and Finance, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 11(4), pages 30-39, April.
    5. Jac C Heckelman & Benjamin Powell, 2010. "Corruption and the Institutional Environment for Growth," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 52(3), pages 351-378, September.
    6. Talal Daghriri & Michael Proctor & Sarah Matthews, 2022. "Evolution of Select Epidemiological Modeling and the Rise of Population Sentiment Analysis: A Literature Review and COVID-19 Sentiment Illustration," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(6), pages 1-20, March.
    7. Sefa Awaworyi Churchill & Davidson Okai & Alberto Posso, 2016. "Internet Use and Ethnic Heterogeneity in a Cross-Section of Countries," Economic Papers, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 35(1), pages 59-72, March.
    8. Dzhumashev, Ratbek, 2014. "Corruption and growth: The role of governance, public spending, and economic development," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 202-215.
    9. Barra, Cristian & Papaccio, Anna & Ruggiero, Nazzareno, 2024. "The interaction between corruption, bank cost efficiency and economic development in Italy," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 48(3).
    10. Arminen, Heli & Menegaki, Angeliki N., 2019. "Corruption, climate and the energy-environment-growth nexus," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 621-634.
    11. Bebonchu Atems & John K Mullen, 2016. "Outward FDI from the USA and host country financial transparency," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(8), pages 1122-1143, November.
    12. Maxim Ananyev & Michael Poyker & Yuan Tian, 2021. "The safest time to fly: pandemic response in the era of Fox News," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(3), pages 775-802, July.
    13. Berggren, Niclas & Bjørnskov, Christian, 2020. "Corruption, judicial accountability and inequality: Unfair procedures may benefit the worst-off," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 341-354.
    14. Asiedu, Edward, 2016. "Coming home without supplies: Impact of household needs on bribe involvement and gender gaps," GlobalFood Discussion Papers 229587, Georg-August-Universitaet Goettingen, GlobalFood, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development.
    15. Simplice A Asongu, 2015. "A Good Turn Deserves Another: Political Stability, Corruption and Corruption-Control," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 35(4), pages 2037-2048.
    16. Nicholas W. Papageorge & Matthew V. Zahn & Michèle Belot & Eline Broek-Altenburg & Syngjoo Choi & Julian C. Jamison & Egon Tripodi, 2021. "Socio-demographic factors associated with self-protecting behavior during the Covid-19 pandemic," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(2), pages 691-738, April.
    17. Bazzi, Samuel & Fiszbein, Martin & Gebresilasse, Mesay, 2021. "“Rugged individualism” and collective (in)action during the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    18. Kaba, Mustafa & Koyuncu, Murat & Schneider, Sebastian O. & Sutter, Matthias, 2024. "Social norms, political polarization, and vaccination attitudes: Evidence from a survey experiment in Turkey," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    19. Şerife Özşahin & Gülbahar Üçler, 2017. "The Consequences of Corruption on Inflation in Developing Countries: Evidence from Panel Cointegration and Causality Tests," Economies, MDPI, vol. 5(4), pages 1-15, December.
    20. Usman Ugboga Koku & Oduor Isaiah Otieno & Edward Kisiang’ani, 2022. "Theoretical Debate on the Development Aid in Africa," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 6(12), pages 520-528, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pgph00:0001157. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: globalpubhealth (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.