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A note of caution in interpreting crosscountry correlations of COVID-19 vaccination and infection rates

Author

Listed:
  • Francesco Bartolucci

    (University of Perugia)

  • Franco Peracchi

    (University of Rome Tor Vergata and EIEF)

  • Daniele Terlizzese

    (EIEF)

Abstract

We show that the finding in Subramanian and Kumar (2021) of no discernible linear relationship between COVID-19 vaccination rates and new infection rates in a cross-section of countries is misleading, because it ignores the substantial degree of heterogeneity across countries. The latter reflects large differences in the stages of the infection and the vaccination process, healthcare systems, people's attitude towards vaccination, etc. In the presence of such heterogeneity simple correlations are hardly interpretable. This is a well-known phenomenon, sometimes referred to as the Simpon's paradox. Exploiting longitudinal data, they show that the estimated linear relationship becomes negative and statistically significant when controlling for time-invariant differences across countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Francesco Bartolucci & Franco Peracchi & Daniele Terlizzese, 2021. "A note of caution in interpreting crosscountry correlations of COVID-19 vaccination and infection rates," EIEF Working Papers Series 2118, Einaudi Institute for Economics and Finance (EIEF), revised Dec 2021.
    • Handle: RePEc:eie:wpaper:2118
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