IESET.
Hypotheses·distribution·capital_mobility_worker_bargaining_power

Increased capital mobility after 1980 (capital account liberalisation across OECD) is correlated with declining worker bargaining power, measured via union density and strike frequency.

PARTIALengine/runs/capital_mobility_worker_bargaining_power

PARTIAL — coef=-0.03062, p=0.134 (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

Do children have a better shot at moving up when schools, housing, and neighborhoods give them access to opportunity, rather than simply because a country redistributes more income?

plain answer

The evidence is suggestive but not decisive. coef=-0.03062, p=0.134 (above α=0.1); direction inconclusive

why it matters

Distributional claims often sound morally clear but are empirically complex. This test asks whether the proposed channel explains real differences across places.

how the test works

It compares 20 country or place units from 1980 to 2020, using a panel fe design, with fixed effects for country and year.

what was measured
What changed
  • Capital account openness chinn ito
  • Financial openness assets plus liabilities to income
What we checked
  • Union density
  • Collective bargaining coverage
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

No evidence packet has been generated yet.

Results

engine/runs/capital_mobility_worker_bargaining_power
1007550250198020002020USAGBRFRADEUITAESPNLD
illustrative sketch · run pending
No coefficients yet. When the model fires, this chart will show union_density across 20 sampled countries over 1980–2020.
The shapes above are stylised — none of the lines are real data.
Placeholder for capital_mobility_worker_bargaining_power. Published chart will be generated from engine/runs/capital_mobility_worker_bargaining_power/chart_data.json.

Who has skin in the game — schools predicting on this

9 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.

Degrowth / Ecological Macroeconomicswins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callDemocratic Socialism (Bernsteinian revisionism + modern)wins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callEco-Socialism / Red-Greenwins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callMarket Socialism (Lange-Lerner tradition)wins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callMarxian Political Economywins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callMarxism-Leninism (central-planning implementation)wins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callModern Monetary Theorywins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callNew Keynesian (mainstream synthesis)wins if MIXEDpartial/no-callPost-Keynesianwins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-call

Pre-registration

registration ordering unverified
first-spec commit 4c8ce8e · 2026-07-18T22:11:21Z
run generated · 2026-06-29T17:48:28Z
Run timestamp predates this path's first git-add commit (rebase, rename, or pre-git local run). Spec hash is still the path's first-add commit — not repository HEAD — but ordering is not a clean pre-registration proof.

Increased capital mobility after 1980 (capital account liberalisation across OECD) is correlated with declining worker bargaining power, measured via union density and strike frequency.

Falsification criterion — what would disprove this

set before the run · honoured after

This hypothesis is considered falsified if:

The hypothesis is considered falsified if the pre-registered empirical test shows the opposite direction of the claim at conventional significance (p > 0.10), or if the primary outcome measure moves less than 10% in the claimed direction across the sample. Exact thresholds will be pinned in the variables and estimator blocks when this stub is promoted from draft.

formal test & threshold
test:      Panel FE regression of union density and strike frequency on Chinn-Ito capital-account-openness across OECD-30 over 1980-2020; country+year FE, country-clustered SEs. Refute if Chinn-Ito coefficient has opposite sign at p<0.10.

Method

Template
panel_fe
Fixed effects
country, year
Clustering
country
Sample
20 countries · 1980 – 2020
Evidence type
associational

Cross-country OECD panel (post-1980 capital-account liberalisation cohort) regressing union density / strike frequency on capital-mobility indices (Chinn-Ito, Quinn) with country and year FE; clustering by country to handle within-country serial correlation.

Data

VariableSourceTransform
union_density
outcome
oecd:OECD.ELS.SAEtier 2
level
collective_bargaining_coverage
outcome
oecd:OECD.ELS.SAEtier 2
level
capital_account_openness_chinn_ito
treatment
world_bank_wdi:NE.TRD.GNFS.ZStier 2
level
financial_openness_assets_plus_liabilities_to_gdp
treatment
world_bank_wdi:BN.KLT.DINV.CDtier 2
log
gdp_per_capita_ppp
control
world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.KDtier 2
log
trade_openness
control
world_bank_wdi:NE.TRD.GNFS.ZStier 2
level
log_population
control
world_bank_wdi:SP.POP.TOTLtier 2
log
unemployment_rate
control
world_bank_wdi:SL.UEM.TOTL.ZStier 2
level

● ready  · ● pending  · ● reconstruct-needed

Detailed result card

Result card — capital_mobility_worker_bargaining_power

Verdict: PARTIAL — coef=-0.03062, p=0.134 (above α=0.1); direction inconclusive

Pre-registration

  • Claim: Increased capital mobility after 1980 (capital account liberalisation across OECD) is correlated with declining worker bargaining power, measured via union density and strike frequency.
  • Falsification rule: The hypothesis is considered falsified if the pre-registered empirical test shows the opposite direction of the claim at conventional significance (p > 0.10), or if the primary outcome measure moves less than 10% in the claimed direction across the sample. Exact thresholds will be pinned in the variables and estimator blocks when this stub is promoted from draft.
  • Falsification test: Panel FE regression of union density and strike frequency on Chinn-Ito capital-account-openness across OECD-30 over 1980-2020; country+year FE, country-clustered SEs. Refute if Chinn-Ito coefficient has opposite sign at p<0.10.

Estimate

  • Method: statsmodels OLS FE fallback (linearmodels failed: exog does not have full column rank. If you wish to proceed with model estimation irrespective of the numerical accuracy of coefficient estimates, you can set check_rank=False.)
  • Coefficient (treatment): -0.03062
  • Std error: 0.02045
  • p-value: 0.134
  • Observations: 418, countries: 15
  • Within R²: 0.981
  • Fixed effects: entity=True, time=True
  • Clustering: country

Variables resolved

  • oecd:OECD.ELS.SAE,DSD_TU@DF_TUD,1.0 → union_density (outcome, publisher=oecd, n=1825)
  • oecd:OECD.ELS.SAE,DSD_TU@DF_CBC,1.0 → collective_bargaining_coverage (outcome, publisher=oecd, n=1076)
  • world_bank_wdi:NE.TRD.GNFS.ZS → capital_account_openness_chinn_ito (treatment, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=10714)
  • world_bank_wdi:BN.KLT.DINV.CD → financial_openness_assets_plus_liabilities_to_gdp (treatment, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=7218)
  • world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.KD → gdp_per_capita_ppp (controls, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=8325)
  • world_bank_wdi:NE.TRD.GNFS.ZS → trade_openness (controls, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=10714)
  • world_bank_wdi:SP.POP.TOTL → log_population (controls, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=14447)
  • world_bank_wdi:SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS → unemployment_rate (controls, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=6874)

Generated by scripts/run_panel_fe.py at 2026-06-29T17:48:28+00:00

Notes

Maps the marxian school's capital-mobility/labour-bargaining claim to a testable spec on OECD panel data. Estimator and prior set; full pre-registration awaits steelman + human sign-off.

Authored framework. Read the transparency note.