The Covid-19 pandemic is one of the most powerful examples of negative externalities in local communities, entire countries and across the globe, calling for the coordination of policies at all levels. We focus on the role played by institutions at the country level in fighting the spread of Covid-19 by making policy coordination more difficult or, on the contrary, more effective. Specifically, we consider the type of political regimes, political fragmentation, and decentralization settings, after controlling for several non-institutional factors. We assemble several data sources with the most recent available information on Covid-19 performance for up to 113 countries around the world. Our main results, which are robust to alternative specifications, show that having either democracies or autocracies does not represent a crucial issue for successfully addressing the pandemic. Most significantly, we find that countries with centralized political parties, which fundamentally allow for better coordination at the national level, perform significantly better than those with decentralized political parties. Although federal countries do appear to have had consistently greater difficulties than unitary countries, a finding that fits well with the role of coordination, overall, the role played by fiscal and administrative decentralization is not robust, but this latter is a result conditioned by the lack of data availability.

Covid-19 大流行是当地社区、整个国家和全球范围内负外部性最有力的例子之一，需要协调各级政策。我们通过使政策协调更加困难，或者相反更加有效，来关注国家层面的机构在抗击 Covid-19 传播方面所发挥的作用。具体而言，我们在控制了几个非制度性因素后，考虑了政治体制的类型、政治分裂和权力下放的设置。我们收集了多个数据源，其中包含全球多达 113 个国家/地区的 Covid-19 性能的最新可用信息。我们的主要结果对替代规格具有稳健性，表明拥有民主或独裁并不代表成功应对大流行的关键问题。最重要的是，我们发现拥有中央政党的国家从根本上允许在国家层面进行更好的协调，其表现明显优于拥有分散政党的国家。尽管联邦制国家似乎确实比单一制国家面临更大的困难，但这一发现与协调的作用非常吻合，总体而言，财政和行政分权所发挥的作用并不强，但后者是缺乏协调性的结果。的数据可用性。从根本上允许在国家层面进行更好的协调，表​​现明显优于权力下放的政党。尽管联邦制国家似乎确实比单一制国家面临更大的困难，但这一发现与协调的作用非常吻合，总体而言，财政和行政分权所发挥的作用并不强，但后者是缺乏协调性的结果。的数据可用性。从根本上允许在国家层面进行更好的协调，表​​现明显优于权力下放的政党。尽管联邦制国家似乎确实比单一制国家面临更大的困难，但这一发现与协调的作用非常吻合，总体而言，财政和行政分权所发挥的作用并不强，但后者是缺乏协调性的结果。的数据可用性。