Congratulations!!

And, finally, our findings suggest that the advancement of both democracy and state capacity can potentially mitigate the consequences of pandemics in the future. 15/

Our findings also demonstrate that official statistics on COVID-19 cannot always be trusted, especially in low-capacity and autocratic countries. Please take care when comparing numbers across countries! /14

In many (but not all) autocracies, the right incentives to fight the pandemic may not be there (easier then to manipulate data on deaths). In weak-capacity democracies, incentives may be there, but not ability to act on them. 13/

We discuss likely mechanisms in the paper, but briefly: Democracy gives elected politicians the incentives to mitigate deaths, whereas state capacity lets them effectively implement policies to this end. 12/

Democratic countries with high state capacity had the lowest number of excess deaths and more accurate reporting of COVID-19 deaths. 11/

High-capacity countries were more likely to both have lower death tolls and provided more accurate statistics on COVID-19 deaths. 10/

Analyzing data from up to 172 countries, we find that democracy is positively related to the number of officially reported deaths but not the number of excess deaths from COVID-19. Such differences are largely driven by underreporting in autocracies. 9/

We also use data on excess mortality to construct a proxy of underreporting, which is negatively correlated with both democracy and state capacity. Autocracies and low-capacity states dramatically under-reported the number of deaths. 8/

Instead of officially reported COVID-19 deaths, we use an estimate of excess mortality from a fantastic new dataset by
the Economist. This measure is actually (slightly) negatively correlated with democracy. 7/

We argue that conclusions drawn from official data might be misleading. Countries might not have had the capacity to accurately report COVID-19 deaths. And, even if such capacity exists, official statistics might be have been manipulated, which is much easier to do in autocracies. /6

Then again, democracy was positively correlated with the number of COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, if we use on official statistics reported by governments. 5/

For instance, when the BBC asked how China could build a hospital in six day, one of the responses was: "China has a record of getting things done fast...This authoritarian country relies on this top down mobilisation approach." (www.bbc.com/news/world-a...) 4/

A popular notion was that a high-capacity authoritarian system like China is best suited for dealing the COVID-19 pandemic, compared to weaker-capacity states and even established democracies such as the US and Italy.
3/

In this paper, @chknutsen.bsky.social and I show that countries that combine democracy and state capacity both experienced fewer COVID-19 deaths and had less under-reporting of deaths. 2/