Data misreporting during the COVID19 crisis: The role of political institutions

We use Benford’s law of first digits to determine whether there is evidence of data misreporting in the total COVID19 reported cases across countries. We try to model the differences in the Mean Absolute Deviation of actual data from those predicted by Benford’s law to indicate the factors that lead to data misreporting using regression analysis. Using the Instrumental Variable model of Lewbel (2012) and Settler Mortality as an external instrument for democracy, we show that autocratic countries are more likely to misreport the COVID19 cases.