An Old Plug and a New Virus: Effect of Public Corruption on the COVID-19 Immunization Progress

Abstract

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak has resulted in the death of over four million people since late 2019. To reduce the human and economic costs of COVID-19, different vac-cines have been developed and distributed across countries. There has been significant cross-country variation in the vaccination of people against COVID-19. In this study, we focus on public corruption to explain the significant cause of cross-country variation in immunization progress. We suggest that countries with a higher degree of public corruption before the pandemic have been less successful in the vaccination of their population, controlling for other important determinants of immunization progress.

Keywords: Covid-19, pandemic, immunization, vaccination, health sector, corruption, cross-country regression

JEL Classification: D730, I150, I180