In this paper, we investigate the relationship between the level of democracy and fiscal-policy response to the economic crisis induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. We use a novel cross-country panel dataset of fiscal-policy responses with time variation. Our results suggest that more democratic countries adopted substantially larger fiscal-policy packages (in % GDP), and the gap regarding the size of packages between more democratic and less democratic countries widened over time. Our analysis of the components of fiscal policy shows that democracies, in particular, provide larger packages that benefit the broad public. Furthermore, our system-equations estimations suggest that the relation of democracy level with the fiscal-policy response is established through democracy’s relation with inclusive institutions, represented by the parliamentary system, and corruption.

在本文中，我们研究了民主水平与应对 COVID-19 大流行引发的经济危机的财政政策之间的关系。我们使用一个新颖的跨国面板数据集，其中包含随时间变化的财政政策反应。我们的结果表明，较民主的国家采取了更大的财政政策方案（以 GDP 百分比计），并且随着时间的推移，较民主的国家和较不民主的国家之间的财政政策规模差距不断扩大。我们对财政政策组成部分的分析表明，民主国家尤其提供了更大的一揽子计划，使广大公众受益。此外，我们的系统方程估计表明，民主水平与财政政策反应的关系是通过民主与包容性机构的关系建立的，