https://macropaperwarehouse.com/authors/ariel-karlinsky/Ariel KarlinskyHugo -- gohugo.ioen-usThu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://macropaperwarehouse.com/papers/manipulation-of-information-in-times-of-crisis-evidence-from-covid-excess-mortality/Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://macropaperwarehouse.com/papers/manipulation-of-information-in-times-of-crisis-evidence-from-covid-excess-mortality/<p>Karlinsky and Shayo ask which governments manipulate public information, in which direction, and by how much — questions that are normally intractable because the ground truth is unobservable. The Covid-19 pandemic supplies an unusual opportunity: all countries faced a broadly similar crisis simultaneously, and all-cause mortality — collected by national statistical offices as a routine bureaucratic function independently of Covid — provides a manipulation-resistant benchmark against which officially-reported Covid deaths can be evaluated.</p>