Template-type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Karabulut, Gokhan
Author-Email: gbulut@istanbul.edu.tr
Author-Workplace-Name: Istanbul University and GLO
Author-Name: Zimmermann, Klaus F.
Author-Email: zimmermann@merit.unu.edu
Author-Workplace-Name: UNU-MERIT, Maastricht University, GLO and CEPR
Author-Name: Bilgin, Mehmet Huseyin
Author-Email: mehmet.bilgin@medeniyet.edu.tr
Author-Workplace-Name: Istanbul Medeniyet University and GLO
Author-Name: Doker, Asli Cansin
Author-Email: acdoker@erzincan.edu.tr
Author-Workplace-Name: Erzincan Binali Yildirim University and GLO
Title: Democracy and COVID-19 Outcomes
Abstract: More democratic countries are often expected to fail at providing a
	 fast, strong, and effective response when facing a crisis such as
	 COVID-19. This could result in higher infections and more negative
	 health effects, but hard evidence to prove this claim is missing for the
	 new disease. Studying the association with five different democracy
	 measures, this study shows that while the infection rates of the disease
	 do indeed appear to be higher for more democratic countries so far,
	 their observed case fatality rates are lower. There is also a negative
	 association between case fatality rates and government attempts to
	 censor media. However, such censorship relates positively to the
	 infection rate.
Classification-JEL: D72, C30, P16, I19
Keywords: Democracy, COVID-19, Coronavirus, Pandemic, Lockdown, Media Censoring
Series: UNU-MERIT Working Papers
Creation-Date: 20210201
Number: 2021-004
File-URL: https://unu-merit.nl/publications/wppdf/2021/wp2021-004.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
File-Size: 275 Kb
Handle: RePEc:unm:unumer:2021004