  The difference in COVID 19 death rates across political regimes has caught a
lot of attention. The "efficient autocracy" view suggests that autocracies may
be more efficient 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.

General Economics;Economics;Applications