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Political regime and COVID 19 death rate: ecient, biasing or simply dierent autocracies?

Author

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  • Cassan, Guilhem

    (University of Namur and CAGE)

  • Steenvoort, Milan Van

    („Maastricht University)

Abstract

The difference in COVID 19 death rates across political regimes has caught a lot of attention. The "effecient autocracy" view suggests that autocracies may be more effcient at putting in place policies that contain COVID 19 spread. On the other hand, the "biasing autocracy" view underlines that autocracies may be under reporting their COVID 19 data. We use fixed effect panel regression methods to discriminate between the two sides of the debate. Our results show that a third view may in fact be prevailing: once pre-determined characteristics of countries are accounted for, COVID 19 death rates equalize across political regimes. The difference in death rate across political regime seems therefore to be primarily due to omitted variable bias.

Suggested Citation

  • Cassan, Guilhem & Steenvoort, Milan Van, 2021. "Political regime and COVID 19 death rate: ecient, biasing or simply dierent autocracies?," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 539, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
  • Handle: RePEc:cge:wacage:539
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    File URL: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/centres/cage/manage/publications/wp539.2021.pdf
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    2. Giorgio Brosio, Riccardo Pelosi, Roberto Zanola, 2022. "Short-term exit from pandemic restrictions: did European countries' speed converge?," European Journal of Comparative Economics, Cattaneo University (LIUC), vol. 19(2), pages 145-159, December.
    3. Biondo, A.E. & Brosio, G. & Pluchino, A. & Zanola, R., 2022. "Authoritarianism vs. democracy: Simulating responses to disease outbreaks," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 594(C).
    4. Jon Reiersen & Manuel Romero-Hernández & Romén Adán-González, 2022. "Government Reactions, Citizens’ Responses, and COVID-19 around the World," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(9), pages 1-12, May.
    5. Luca Farè & David B. Audretsch & Marcus Dejardin, 2023. "Does democracy foster entrepreneurship?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 61(4), pages 1461-1495, December.

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