Working Papers

From University of Chile, Department of Economics
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wp568: Despite the importance of excess mortality estimates for assessing the scale of a pandemic and informing policy decisions, little attention has been paid to the statistical properties of the methods used to generate them. In this paper, we show that the empirical coverage of prediction intervals for 24-month cumulative excess mortality produced by two of the most influential approaches falls well below the nominal 95% level. The World Health Organization (WHO) methodology, for example, exhibits coverage as low as 30%. We propose two models for estimating excess mortality—one frequentist and one Bayesian—both of which are variants of the WHO model and produce prediction intervals with empirical coverage close to the nominal levels. Moreover, we introduce a simple correction method that can be applied to any model for which pre-pandemic death-count time series are observed. The correction calibrates prediction intervals using the historical validation environment, allowing researchers to address undercoverage on average across units and periods. We provide two concrete examples illustrating the practical importance of working with prediction intervals with correct coverage. First, we focus on the underreporting gap, defined as excess deaths minus reported COVID-19 deaths. Using the WHO method, uncorrected estimates suggest that 41 of 51 U.S. jurisdictions and 13 of 30 European countries experienced a significantly positive underreporting gap. In contrast, applying our correction reduces these numbers to 22 and 6, respectively. These findings indicate that the statistical evidence for a positive gap between excess deaths and reported COVID-19 deaths is weaker and far less widespread than suggested by methods with overly narrow prediction intervals. Second, we show that rankings of groups of countries or regions based on excess death rates, defined as excess death counts per 100,000 inhabitants, are considerably less informative than previously thought and should therefore be used with caution when evaluating different policies across countries. Compared to the standard WHO methodology, our frequentist model increases the average number of statistically indistinguishable units at a given rank from 6.2 to 27.1 among the 30 European countries in our database, and from 13.1 to 49.0 among the 51 U.S. jurisdictions

Javier Cortes, Juan D. Diaz, Eduardo Engel, Ivan Gutierrez and Alejandro Jofre

wp567: The Dynamic Effects of Unionization on Productivity

Sebastian Gallardo and Esteban Puentes

wp566: Performance Comparison Between Concessioned and Privatized Water Utilities in Chile

Aldo Gonzalez

wp565: Analysis of Chile's Rapid Crime Decline

Alejandro Bayas, Nicolas Grau and Esteban Puentes

wp564: Governance, Risks, and Returns to Human Capital

Daniel Jacobi, Elizabeth M. King, Claudio Montenegro and Peter F. Orazem

wp563: Rental Assistance in Middle-Income Countries:Quasi-experimental Evidence from Chile

Javiera Selman

wp562: Do Relief Programs Compensate For Longevity Losses From Reccesions? Evidence From The Great Depression And The New Deal

Ariadna Jou and Tommy Morgan

wp561: Air Pollution in the Global South: An Overview of Its Sources and Impacts

Sandra Aguilar-Gomez and Nathaly Rivera

wp560: Women's Suffrage and Men's Voting Patterns

Jeanne Lafortune and Francisco Pino

wp559: Local Non-Bossiness and Preferences Over Colleagues

Eduardo Duque, Juan Pereyra and Juan Pablo Torres-Martinez

wp558: On Incentives in Three-Sided Markets

Jorge Arenas Molina and Juan Pablo Torres-Martinez

wp557: Wood-Burning Restrictions and Indoor Air Pollution: The Case of Air Quality Warnings in Southern Chile

Cristian Concha and Nathaly Rivera

wp556: The Heterogeneous Impact of COVID-19 on University Student's Academic Performance

Mauricio Acuña, Roberto Alvarez and Cristobal Avarca

wp555: Exploring the Effects of FTAs on Chilean Exports: Heterogeneous responses and Financial Constraints

Roberto Alvarez and Eugenia Andreasen

wp554: The cost of following traditional gender norms: Evidence from a paid leave for seriously ill children

Valentina Paredes, Francisca Perez, Francisco Pino and Patricia Olmedo Cortes

wp553: Strategic Behavior Without Outside Options

Camilo J. Sirguiado and Juan Pablo Torres-Martinez

wp552: Whisper Words of Wisdom: How Financial Counseling can Reduce Delinquency in Consumer Loans

Roberto Alvarez, Alvaro Miranda and Jaime Ruiz-Tagle

wp551: Are Innovation Barriers Different for Chilean Exporters and Non-Exporters?

Roberto Alvarez and Miguel A. Gonzalez

wp550: Obstacles to Green Innovation: Evidence from Chilean Firms

Roberto Alvarez and Miguel A. Gonzalez

wp549: The Pillars of Shared Prosperity: Insights From Elite versus State Extraction And From a New Instrument

Andres Irarrazaval

wp548: The Impact of Subsidy Delivery Method on Savings Behavior: Experimental Evidence

Abhijit Banerjee, Claudia Martinez A. and Esteban Puentes

wp547: On Housing Markets with Indecisive Agents

Emilio Guaman and Juan Pablo Torres-Martinez

wp546: Effectiveness of Foreign Exchange Interventions Evidence and Lessons from Chile

Jorge Arenas Molina and Stephany Griffith-Jones

wp545: Better Strategies for Saving More Evidence from Three Interventions in Chile

Abhijit Banerjee, Claudia Martínez A. and Esteban Puentes

wp544: Selfish in payments, selfish in opportunities to obtain the payment

Giselli Castillo

wp543: From Dominant to Producer Currency Pricing: Dynamics of Chilean Exports

Jose De Gregorio, Pablo Garcia, Emiliano Luttini and Marco Rojas

wp542: The Strong Effects of Weak Externalities on School Choice

Eduardo Duque and Juan Pablo Torres-Martinez

wp541: Digging Deep: Resource Exploitation and Higher Education

Lenin Balza, Camilo De Los Rios and Nathaly Rivera

wp540: The Health Benefits of Solar Power Generation: Evidence from Chile

Nathaly Rivera, Elisheba Spiller and J. Cristobal Ruiz-Tagle

wp539: Explaining the volatility of the real exchange rate in emerging markets

Manuel Agosin and Juan D. Diaz-Maureira

wp538: Incentives in Three-Sided Markets

Jorge Arenas Molina and Juan Pablo Torres-Martinez

wp537: Estimating Inter-generational Returns to Medical Care: New Evidence from At-Risk Newborns

Damian Clarke, Nicolas Lillo Bustos and Kathya Tapia-Schythe

wp536: Cash Transfer and Voter Turnout

Alexander James, Nathaly Rivera and Brock Smith

wp535: Chile y el Desarrollo Economico

Ricardo Ffrench-Davis

wp534: Female Political Representation and Violence Against Women: Evidence from Brazil

Magdalena Delaporte and Francisco Pino

wp533: What is the Effect of Domestic Demand Shocks on Inflation in a Small Open Economy? Chile 2000-2021

Ramon Lopez and Kevin Sepulveda

wp532: Median Labor Income in Chile Revised: Insights from Distributional National Accounts

Jose De Gregorio and Manuel Taboada

wp531: The Fiscal Origins of Comparative Inequality levels: An Empirical and Historical Investigation

Andres Irarrazaval

wp530: Getting Teachers Back to School: Teacher Incentives and Student Outcomes

Patricio Araya-Córdova, Dante Contreras, Jorge Rodriguez and Paulina Sepulveda

wp529: ¿Cual es el efecto de shocks de demanda interna sobre la inflacion en una economia pequena y abierta? Chile 2000-2021

Ramon Lopez and Kevin Sepulveda

wp528: Beyond the Fetish of Economic Growth: Measuring Sustainable Economic Welfare in Chile

Simon Accorsi O., Ramon Lopez, Maite Azua and Valentina Vergara

wp527: The Economic Consequences of The Chilean Democratic Transition

Simon Accorsi O.

wp526: Democracy, Economic Growth and the Identification Problem in Macroeconomics

Simon Accorsi O.

wp525: The Fiscal Origins of Comparative Inequality levels: An Empirical and Historical Investigation

Andres Irarrazaval

wp524: Inequality of Opportunity and Juvenile Crime

Alejandro Bayas and Nicolas Grau

wp523: Una nueva estimacion de la desigualdad de ingresos en Chile

Osvaldo Larranaga, Benajamin Echecopar and Nicolas Grau

wp522: Innovation Strategy and Economic Development

Matias Braun, Luis Cespedes and Sebastian Bustos

wp521: Las Criptomonedas: Una Mirada Esceptica y los Desafios a la Industria Financiera y Banca Central

Jose De Gregorio

wp520: The Good, the Bad, and the not-so Ugly of Credit Booms: Capital Allocation and Financial Constraints

Matias Braun, Francisco Marcet and Claudio E. Raddatz K.

wp519: Does the Diversity and Solvency of Authorized Participants Matter for Bond ETF Arbitrage? Evidence from the Dash for Cash Episode

Claudio E. Raddatz K.