IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cge/wacage/539.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Political regime and COVID 19 death rate: effecient , biasing or simply different autocracies?

Author

Listed:
  • 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 effecient 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: effecient , biasing or simply different autocracies?," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 539, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    • Handle: RePEc:cge:wacage:539
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/centres/cage/manage/publications/wp539.2021.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cassan, Guilhem, 2019. "Affirmative action, education and gender: Evidence from India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 51-70.
    2. Yuen Yuen Ang, 2020. "When COVID-19 meets centralized, personalized power," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 4(5), pages 445-447, May.
    3. Masayuki Kudamatsu, 2012. "Has Democratization Reduced Infant Mortality In Sub-Saharan Africa? Evidence From Micro Data," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(6), pages 1294-1317, December.
    4. Esther Duflo, 2001. "Schooling and Labor Market Consequences of School Construction in Indonesia: Evidence from an Unusual Policy Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 795-813, September.
    5. Daron Acemoglu & Suresh Naidu & Pascual Restrepo & James A. Robinson, 2019. "Democracy Does Cause Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(1), pages 47-100.
    6. Timothy Besley & Masayuki Kudamatsu, 2006. "Health and Democracy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 313-318, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Luca Farè & David B. Audretsch & Marcus Dejardin, 2023. "Does democracy foster entrepreneurship?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 61(4), pages 1461-1495, December.
    2. 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.
    3. Edgell, Amanda B. & Lachapelle, Jean & Lührmann, Anna & Maerz, Seraphine F., 2021. "Pandemic backsliding: Violations of democratic standards during Covid-19," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 285(C).
    4. 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.
    5. 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).

    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. Fenske, James & Wang, Shizhuo, 2023. "Tradition and mortality: Evidence from twin infanticide in Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    2. Alberto Batinti & Joan Costa‐Font & Timothy J. Hatton, 2022. "Voting Up? The Effects of Democracy and Franchise Extension on Human Stature," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 89(353), pages 161-190, January.
    3. Johannes Blum & Florian Dorn & Axel Heuer, 2021. "Political institutions and health expenditure," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 28(2), pages 323-363, April.
    4. Ọláyínká Oyèkọ́lá, 2023. "Democracy Does Improve Health," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 166(1), pages 105-132, February.
    5. Batinti, Alberto & Costa-Font, Joan, 2022. "Does democracy make taller men? Cross-country European evidence," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 45(C).
    6. Ramos, Antonio P. & Flores, Martin J. & Ross, Michael L., 2020. "Where has democracy helped the poor? Democratic transitions and early-life mortality at the country level," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 265(C).
    7. Yuyang He & Dominik Naeher, 2022. "Do democracies perform worse during pandemics? Evidence from 2020," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 42(3), pages 1681-1687.
    8. Germán Bet & Cecilia Peluffo, 2023. "Democracy, commodity price booms, and infant mortality," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 64(1), pages 153-193, January.
    9. Luca Farè & David B. Audretsch & Marcus Dejardin, 2023. "Does democracy foster entrepreneurship?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 61(4), pages 1461-1495, December.
    10. Saeed Khodaverdian, 2022. "The African tragedy: the effect of democracy on economic growth," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 62(3), pages 1147-1175, March.
    11. Bromley, Daniel W., 2022. "The confusions of democracy: The Arab spring and beyond," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    12. Andrea Marcucci & Dominic Rohner & Alessandro Saia, 2023. "Ballot or Bullet: The Impact of the UK’s Representation of the People Act on Peace and Prosperity," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 133(652), pages 1510-1536.
    13. Okada, Keisuke, 2018. "Health and political regimes: Evidence from quantile regression," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 307-319.
    14. Vu, Trung V., 2020. "Economic complexity and health outcomes: A global perspective," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 265(C).
    15. Robin Burgess & Remi Jedwab & Edward Miguel & Ameet Morjaria & Gerard Padró i Miquel, 2015. "The Value of Democracy: Evidence from Road Building in Kenya," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(6), pages 1817-1851, June.
    16. Fumagalli, Elena & Mentzakis, Emmanouil & Suhrcke, Marc, 2013. "Do political factors matter in explaining under- and overweight outcomes in developing countries?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 48-56.
    17. Daron Acemoglu & Suresh Naidu & Pascual Restrepo & James A. Robinson, 2019. "Democracy Does Cause Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(1), pages 47-100.
    18. Susumu Annaka & Masaaki Higashijima, 2017. "Democratization and Human Development," Working Papers 1712, Waseda University, Faculty of Political Science and Economics.
    19. Subedi, Mukti Nath & Rafiq, Shuddhasattwa & Ulker, Aydogan, 2022. "Effects of Affirmative Action on Educational and Labour Market Outcomes: Evidence from Nepal's Reservation Policy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 443-463.
    20. Vladimir A. Kozlov & Dina Y. Balalaeva, 2015. "Institutional Deficit and Health Outcomes in Post-Communist States," HSE Working papers WP BRP 25/PS/2015, National Research University Higher School of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    JEL Classification:;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cge:wacage:539. 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: Jane Snape (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dewaruk.html .

    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.