The Winners and Losers of COVID-19 - A Global Comparative Study

Abstract

Determinants explaining country-level success and failure when handling COVID-19 are disputed. The gender of state leaders, political affiliation and stringency of containment measures have all been argued as potential elements to maneuver a country successfully through the crisis. This study aims to identify which variables best explain the variance in success when handling the pandemic, empirically substantiating the classification of winners from losers. The estimated results show that female state leaders and political center catch-all governments have performed significantly better than their counterparts, when defining success to be the product of human and economic health. Stringent containment measures are found to have an overall detrimental impact on success, while simultaneously being the variable explaining the largest variation in success.