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.

翻译：政治体制之间在COVID 19死亡率方面的差异引起了人们的极大关注。 “高效的独裁”观点表明,独裁或许更能有效实施包含COVID 19扩散的政策。 另一方面,“偏见的独裁”观点强调,独裁可能正在报告其COVID 19数据。 我们使用固定效果小组回归方法来区别对待辩论的两面。 我们的结果表明,事实上可能存在第三种观点:一旦确定了国家预先确定的特点,COVID 19死亡率就会在政治体制之间达到平衡。 因此,整个政治体制的死亡率差异似乎主要是由于忽略了不同的偏见。