IESET.
Hypotheses·labour·canada_real_disposable_income_post_2015

Canadian real household disposable income per capita has stagnated or grown more slowly than in comparable resource-plus-anglophone-plus-small- open-developed economies (USA, AUS, NZL, GBR, NOR, CHE) over 2015-2023, once adjusted for CPI and household size.

The claim is narrowly about the household-sector purchasing-power trajectory — not aggregate output and not pre-tax labour earnings in isolation — because the relevant welfare metric for a household under the 2015-present Canadian policy mix is after-tax-and-transfer real income per capita. The hypothesis additionally tests whether, once housing costs are netted out (real disposable income net of shelter expenditure), the Canadian trajectory is worse than the headline series suggests, since Canadian house prices and rents rose substantially faster than the donor-pool average over the sample window.

PARTIALengine/runs/canada_real_disposable_income_post_2015

PARTIAL — coef=-0.02236, p=0.451 (above α=0.1); direction inconclusive

confidence cueThe result is useful, but not decisive. Treat it as a clue, not a settled conclusion.

policy briefMixed or noisy

In ordinary language

Over a long period, do more market-oriented institutions translate into higher income or productivity, once the comparison looks beyond a single success story?

plain answer

The evidence is suggestive but not decisive. coef=-0.02236, p=0.451 (above α=0.1); direction inconclusive

why it matters

Labor-market rules often help some workers while risking job loss or slower hiring for others. This test looks for that tradeoff in observable employment or unemployment data.

how the test works

It compares 7 country or place units from 2000 to 2023, using a panel fe design, with fixed effects for country and year.

what was measured
What changed
  • Canada post 2015
Possible pathway
  • Real house price index
  • Household debt to disposable income
What we checked
  • Real household net disposable income per capita
  • Gni per capita cost-of-living adjusted constant
  • Real wage growth cumulative
what this does not prove

A single test is not the whole truth. It narrows the claim under a specific sample, time period, and method. Strong policy conclusions need the pattern to survive nearby tests, alternative data, and serious objections.

verification

5 input datasets, 0 unresolved missing series, provenance status: partial provenance.

Results

engine/runs/canada_real_disposable_income_post_2015
1007550250200020122023CANUSAAUSNZLGBRNORCHE
illustrative sketch · run pending
No coefficients yet. When the model fires, this chart will show real_household_net_disposable_income_per_capita across 7 sampled countries over 2000–2023.
The shapes above are stylised — none of the lines are real data.
Placeholder for canada_real_disposable_income_post_2015. Published chart will be generated from engine/runs/canada_real_disposable_income_post_2015/chart_data.json.

Who has skin in the game — schools predicting on this

17 schools list this hypothesis as a test of their position. The chips below are school-level scoreboard outcomes, not a second hypothesis verdict.

hypothesis verdict vs scoreboard outcome

The banner verdict judges this hypothesis as written. The scoreboard asks whether each school's polarity-corrected prediction was right. Raw status is not a school win: SUPPORTED supports schools that needed SUPPORTED, but refutes schools that needed REFUTED.

Austrian Business Cycle Theory (ABCT)wins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callChicago School Monetarismwins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callClassical Liberalwins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callDegrowth / Ecological Macroeconomicswins if REFUTEDpartial/no-callDemocratic Socialism (Bernsteinian revisionism + modern)wins if REFUTEDpartial/no-callStructuralist / Developmentalistwins if MIXEDpartial/no-callEco-Socialism / Red-Greenwins if REFUTEDpartial/no-callEmpirical Pragmatist (the framework's house position)wins if MIXEDpartial/no-callNew Institutional Economicswins if MIXEDpartial/no-callMarket Socialism (Lange-Lerner tradition)wins if REFUTEDpartial/no-callMarxian Political Economywins if REFUTEDpartial/no-callMarxism-Leninism (central-planning implementation)wins if REFUTEDpartial/no-callModern Monetary Theorywins if REFUTEDpartial/no-callNew Keynesian (mainstream synthesis)wins if MIXEDpartial/no-callOrdoliberalism (Freiburg School)wins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callPost-Keynesianwins if REFUTEDpartial/no-callSocial Democraticwins if REFUTEDpartial/no-call

Pre-registration

pre-registered
first-spec commit bae09ab · 2026-04-29T22:09:42Z
run generated · 2026-06-29T17:53:27Z

Canadian real household disposable income per capita has stagnated or grown more slowly than in comparable resource-plus-anglophone-plus-small- open-developed economies (USA, AUS, NZL, GBR, NOR, CHE) over 2015-2023, once adjusted for CPI and household size. The claim is narrowly about the household-sector purchasing-power trajectory — not aggregate output and not pre-tax labour earnings in isolation — because the relevant welfare metric for a household under the 2015-present Canadian policy mix is after-tax-and-transfer real income per capita. The hypothesis additionally tests whether, once housing costs are netted out (real disposable income net of shelter expenditure), the Canadian trajectory is worse than the headline series suggests, since Canadian house prices and rents rose substantially faster than the donor-pool average over the sample window.

Falsification criterion — what would disprove this

set before the run · honoured after

This hypothesis is considered falsified if:

Not supported if β_canada_post_2015 is non-negative (>= 0) at p < 0.10 in both (a) the OECD household-disposable-income primary spec and (b) the WDI GNI-per-capita proxy spec. Supported-tentative if negative and significant in only one of the two specs. Supported if negative and significant in both, with the housing-netted specification reported as secondary evidence on real purchasing- power. If the transfer-share decomposition channel shows that transfer-share increases in Canada fully offset pre-tax wage weakness (i.e., disposable income after transfers tracks the donor pool even while pre-tax wages do not), the result card must report this explicitly: Canadian redistribution absorbed the market-income shock, and the "household-income stagnation" framing is inaccurate even if the "market-income stagnation" framing is accurate.

formal test & threshold
test:      canada_post_2015_household_income_twfe_two_spec
threshold: β_canada_post_2015 < 0 at p < 0.10 in OECD primary spec  AND β_canada_post_2015 < 0 at p < 0.10 in WDI GNI proxy spec.

Method

Template
panel_fe
Fixed effects
country, year
Clustering
country
Sample
7 countries · 2000 – 2023
Evidence type
causal

Primary: TWFE on log real household disposable income per capita with country and year fixed effects. β_canada_post_2015 identifies the Canadian household-income trajectory deviation from the donor pool's time-average. Two-spec rule (per METHODOLOGY.md): the primary spec uses OECD household disposable income; the secondary spec uses WDI GNI per capita (PPP, constant) as proxy, with identical fixed effects and treatment indicator. Both specifications reported. A finding supported under BOTH passes the two-spec rule; supported under only one is reported as tentative. Housing-netted specification: construct "real household disposable income net of shelter" = household disposable income per capita minus a fitted shelter-expenditure estimate (BIS RPP × shelter- weight from OECD household accounts). Re-estimate the TWFE on this netted series. Expected direction: Canadian gap widens once shelter is netted out, because housing cost growth absorbed a larger share of nominal income in Canada than in the donor pool. Data-gate: this hypothesis is flagged as v1.1 fetcher requirement. The OECD Household Dashboard dataflow URNs must be verified before first run; the Statistics Canada cross-walk must be implemented for Canada-specific robustness. Until the primary series is available, runs will use GNI-per-capita proxy only and explicitly label findings as proxy-based.

Data

VariableSourceTransform
real_household_net_disposable_income_per_capita
outcome
oecd:OECD.SDD.NADtier 2
log
gni_per_capita_ppp_constant
outcome
world_bank_wdi:NY.GNP.PCAP.PP.KDtier 2
log
real_wage_growth_cumulative
outcome
oecd:OECD.ELS.SAEtier 2
cumulative_index_2015_base
canada_post_2015
treatment
constructed:indicator = 1 if country=CAN and year >= 2015; 0 otherwise.tier 5
indicator
real_house_price_index
channel
bis:WS_SPP_RPPtier 2
cumulative_index_2015_base
household_debt_to_disposable_income
channel
oecd:OECD.SDD.NADtier 2
level
net_transfers_share_of_household_income
channel
oecd:OECD.SDD.NADtier 2
level
log_population
control
world_bank_wdi:SP.POP.TOTLtier 2
log
cpi_inflation_annual
control
world_bank_wdi:FP.CPI.TOTL.ZGtier 2
level
terms_of_trade_index
control
world_bank_wdi:TT.PRI.MRCH.XD.WDtier 2
level

● ready  · ● pending  · ● reconstruct-needed

Detailed result card

Result card — canada_real_disposable_income_post_2015

Verdict: PARTIAL — coef=-0.02236, p=0.451 (above α=0.1); direction inconclusive

Pre-registration

  • Claim: Canadian real household disposable income per capita has stagnated or grown more slowly than in comparable resource-plus-anglophone-plus-small- open-developed economies (USA, AUS, NZL, GBR, NOR, CHE) over 2015-2023, once adjusted for CPI and household size. The claim is narrowly about the household-sector purchasing-power trajectory — not aggregate output and not pre-tax labour earnings in isolation — because the relevant welfare metric for a household under the 2015-present Canadian policy mix is after-tax-and-transfer real income per capita. The hypothesis additionally tests whether, once housing costs are netted out (real disposable income net of shelter expenditure), the Canadian trajectory is worse than the headline series suggests, since Canadian house prices and rents rose substantially faster than the donor-pool average over the sample window.
  • Falsification rule: Not supported if β_canada_post_2015 is non-negative (>= 0) at p < 0.10 in both (a) the OECD household-disposable-income primary spec and (b) the WDI GNI-per-capita proxy spec. Supported-tentative if negative and significant in only one of the two specs. Supported if negative and significant in both, with the housing-netted specification reported as secondary evidence on real purchasing- power. If the transfer-share decomposition channel shows that transfer-share increases in Canada fully offset pre-tax wage weakness (i.e., disposable income after transfers tracks the donor pool even while pre-tax wages do not), the result card must report this explicitly: Canadian redistribution absorbed the market-income shock, and the "household-income stagnation" framing is inaccurate even if the "market-income stagnation" framing is accurate.
  • Falsification test: canada_post_2015_household_income_twfe_two_spec

Estimate

  • Method: linearmodels.PanelOLS
  • Coefficient (treatment): -0.02236
  • Std error: 0.02948
  • p-value: 0.451
  • Observations: 95, countries: 4
  • Within R²: 0.789
  • Fixed effects: entity=True, time=True
  • Clustering: country

Variables resolved

  • world_bank_wdi:NY.GNP.PCAP.PP.KD → gni_per_capita_ppp_constant (outcome, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=5109)
  • oecd:OECD.ELS.SAE,DSD_EARNINGS@DF_EARN,1.0 → real_wage_growth_cumulative (outcome, publisher=oecd, n=622)
  • constructed: indicator = 1 if country=CAN and year >= 2015; 0 otherwise. → canada_post_2015 (treatment, publisher=constructed, n=168)
  • bis:WS_SPP_RPP → real_house_price_index (decomposition_channels, publisher=bis, n=2272)
  • world_bank_wdi:SP.POP.TOTL → log_population (controls, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=14447)
  • world_bank_wdi:FP.CPI.TOTL.ZG → cpi_inflation_annual (controls, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=7550)
  • world_bank_wdi:TT.PRI.MRCH.XD.WD → terms_of_trade_index (controls, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=6478)

Variables missing data

  • oecd:OECD.SDD.NAD,DSD_NASEC_T14@DF_T14,1.0 (outcome, name=real_household_net_disposable_income_per_capita) — vintage not on disk
  • oecd:OECD.SDD.NAD,DSD_NASEC_T7HH@DF_T7HH,1.0 (decomposition_channels, name=household_debt_to_disposable_income) — vintage not on disk
  • oecd:OECD.SDD.NAD,DSD_NASEC_T14@DF_T14,1.0 (net current transfers received component) (decomposition_channels, name=net_transfers_share_of_household_income) — vintage not on disk

Generated by scripts/run_panel_fe.py at 2026-06-29T17:53:27+00:00

Strongest opposing argument

Every hypothesis ships with its charitable opposing argument. The framework earns credibility by handling objections at their strongest, not weakest.

Notes

v1.1 dependency: OECD Household Dashboard dataflow URN verification and Statistics Canada CANSIM cross-walk. Primary run before v1.1 must use WDI GNI-per-capita proxy only and be labelled accordingly. The "v1.1 fetcher requirement" marker preserves the pre-registration integrity: the claim, sample, treatment, estimator, and falsification rule are fixed now; only the data source wiring becomes more precise between v1 and v1.1. This is consistent with the pre-registration discipline under METHODOLOGY.md.

Authored framework. Read the transparency note.