Table 1.
Democracy and Infection Rate (columns I–V); Democracy and Case Fatality Rate (columns VI–X).
| PANEL A: Baseline estimates |
||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| (I) | (II) | (III) | (IV) | (V) | (VI) | (VII) | (VIII) | (IX) | (X) | |
| FH Total | 1.027*** | – | – | – | – | −0.04 | – | – | – | – |
| (0.212) | (0.108) | |||||||||
| FH Political Rights | – | 0.845*** | – | – | – | – | −0.008 | – | – | – |
| (0.179) | (0.094) | |||||||||
| FH Civil Liberties | – | – | 1.259*** | – | – | – | – | −0.045 | – | – |
| (0.251) | (0.129) | |||||||||
| Polity Democracy Index | – | – | – | 0.749*** | – | – | – | – | 0.055 | – |
| (0.23) | (0.105) | |||||||||
| Electoral Democracy Index | – | – | – | – | 1.082*** | – | – | – | – | 0.089 |
| (0.364) | (0.147) | |||||||||
| 0.155 | 0.161 | 0.155 | 0.101 | 0.118 | 0.001 | 0.001 | 0.001 | 0.003 | 0.005 | |
| PANEL B: Estimates with control variables | ||||||||||
| (I) | (II) | (III) | (IV) | (V) | (VI) | (VII) | (VIII) | (IX) | (X) | |
| FH Total | 1.233*** | – | – | – | – | −0.822*** | – | – | – | – |
| (0.468) | (0.211) | |||||||||
| FH Political Rights | – | 1.286*** | – | – | – | – | −0.486*** | – | – | – |
| (0.382) | (0.184) | |||||||||
| FH Civil Liberties | – | – | 0.717 | – | – | – | – | −0.904*** | – | – |
| (0.432) | (0.226) | |||||||||
| Polity Democracy Index | – | – | – | 0.639** | – | – | – | – | −0.428*** | – |
| (0.284) | (0.159) | |||||||||
| Electoral Democracy Index | – | – | – | – | 1.175** | – | – | – | – | −0.498** |
| (0.558) | (0.204) | |||||||||
| Gini Coefficient | −0.076 | 0.037 | −0.169 | −0.253 | 0.091 | 0.041 | 0.051 | 0.048 | 0.159 | 0.015 |
| (0.492) | (0.471) | (0.501) | (0.518) | (0.557) | (0.292) | (0.303) | (0.284) | (0.285) | (0.304) | |
| Tourism Revenue per capita | 0.871 | 0.808 | 1.173 | 1.293 | 1.307 | 0.75 | 0.586 | 0.755 | 0.469 | 0.407 |
| (3.42) | (3.292) | (3.511) | (3.518) | (3.328) | (2.475) | (2.473) | (2.461) | (2.425) | (2.48) | |
| GDP per capita | 0.015 | 0.01 | 0.039 | 0.14 | 0.104 | −0.194* | −0.214* | −0.179* | −0.277** | −0.251** |
| (0.145) | (0.139) | (0.15) | (0.149) | (0.151) | (0.107) | (0.109) | (0.106) | (0.112) | (0.111) | |
| Temperature | −0.361** | −0.357** | −0.350** | −0.344** | −0.346** | 0.012 | −0.001 | 0.022 | 0.002 | −0.003 |
| (0.165) | (0.156) | (0.168) | (0.162) | (0.164) | (0.071) | (0.074) | (0.071) | (0.076) | (0.073) | |
| Government Censorship Effort | −0.739 | −1.523** | 0.099 | −0.228 | −0.699 | 1.445*** | 1.277** | 1.345*** | 1.108** | 1.037** |
| (0.707) | (0.68) | (0.853) | (0.837) | (0.797) | (0.439) | (0.486) | (0.453) | (0.494) | (0.458) | |
| Population Share 65 and older | −1.241*** | −1.327*** | −1.062** | −1.080** | −1.308*** | 0.647** | 0.569** | 0.647** | 0.541** | 0.583** |
| (0.462) | (0.397) | (0.445) | (0.434) | (0.496) | (0.246) | (0.232) | (0.246) | (0.25) | (0.249) | |
| Doctors per 1000 population | 1.048*** | 1.014*** | 1.052*** | 1.022*** | 1.049*** | 0.164 | 0.183 | 0.147 | 0.182 | 0.169 |
| (0.207) | (0.193) | (0.211) | (0.204) | (0.205) | (0.125) | (0.13) | (0.123) | (0.123) | (0.129) | |
| Beds per 1000 population | 0.009 | 0.128 | −0.035 | −0.042 | 0.034 | −0.301** | −0.336** | −0.266** | −0.267** | −0.303** |
| (0.203) | (0.185) | (0.206) | (0.216) | (0.197) | (0.118) | (0.128) | (0.11) | (0.112) | (0.121) | |
| Health Expenditures per capita | 0.427 | 0.522 | 0.387 | 0.353 | 0.354 | 0.261 | 0.232 | 0.296 | 0.311 | 0.298 |
| (0.378) | (0.341) | (0.396) | (0.374) | (0.361) | (0.255) | (0.263) | (0.247) | (0.249) | (0.255) | |
| Testing Policy | 0.713* | 0.825** | 0.598 | 0.706* | 0.687* | −0.567** | −0.544** | −0.554** | −0.563** | −0.502** |
| (0.365) | (0.328) | (0.397) | (0.396) | (0.37) | (0.241) | (0.252) | (0.241) | (0.248) | (0.252) | |
| 0.574 | 0.615 | 0.552 | 0.566 | 0.579 | 0.332 | 0.316 | 0.335 | 0.317 | 0.297 | |
Notes: Robust standard errors in parentheses. Number of countries: 128 (Panel A); 99 (Panel B). Gini Coefficient: Measure of the deviation of the distribution of income among individuals or households within a country. The coefficient ranges from 0 to 100, with 0 representing perfect equality and 100 representing perfect inequality. Government Censorship Effort: The Government Censorship Effort variable measures in a continuous way the degree of government censorship of media and press with positive numbers whereas a rising value indicates lower censorship. Testing Policy: The Testing Policy variable takes values between 0–3 where 0 means no response and 3 means maximum stringent response of daily data collected over the COVID-19 period averaged to obtain a non-zero continuous measure rising with stronger testing activity. * Statistical significance at level 10% (*), 5% (**), and 1% (***). For all variables (numbers were all positive) natural logarithmic transformations are used in the regressions.