IESET.
Hypotheses·distribution·china_1978_price_liberalisation_growth_decomposition

Deng Xiaoping's 1978 reforms, by introducing price signals and household responsibility in agriculture and Township-Village-Enterprise market exchange, account for the majority of Chinese poverty reduction 1978–2000 — not state investment.

INCONCLUSIVEengine/runs/china_1978_price_liberalisation_growth_decomposition

INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — couldn't infer event_year

confidence cueResult card produced; verdict unclassified.

policy briefCoverage too thin

In ordinary language

In plain terms, this asks whether hrs rollout share is actually linked to better or worse rural poverty headcount from 1978 to 2000.

plain answer

This test cannot make a firm call yet. couldn't infer event_year

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 1 country or place units from 1978 to 2000, using a event study design, with fixed effects for province and year.

what was measured
What changed
  • Hrs rollout share
  • Tve employment share
Possible pathway
  • State investment share of income
  • Trade openness
What we checked
  • Rural poverty headcount
  • Real income per person
  • Agricultural productivity proxy
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/china_1978_price_liberalisation_growth_decomposition
1007550250197819892000CHN
illustrative sketch · run pending
No coefficients yet. When the model fires, this chart will show rural_poverty_headcount across 1 sampled countries over 1978–2000.
The shapes above are stylised — none of the lines are real data.
Placeholder for china_1978_price_liberalisation_growth_decomposition. Published chart will be generated from engine/runs/china_1978_price_liberalisation_growth_decomposition/chart_data.json.

Who has skin in the game — schools predicting on this

1 school 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.

Classical Liberalwins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-call

Pre-registration

pre-registered
first-spec commit bae09ab · 2026-04-29T22:09:42Z
run generated · 2026-05-04T13:02:29Z

Deng Xiaoping's 1978 reforms, by introducing price signals and household responsibility in agriculture and Township-Village-Enterprise market exchange, account for the majority of Chinese poverty reduction 1978–2000 — not state investment.

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:      Provincial event-study (1978-2000) of poverty headcount on HRS rollout timing with province+year FE; Shapley decomposition of growth into market-reform vs state-investment shares. Refute if market-reform share <50% or sign-flipped at p<0.10.

Method

Template
event_study
Fixed effects
province, year
Clustering
province
Sample
1 countries · 1978 – 2000
Evidence type
associational

Event study around 1978 reform onset using provincial panel (Lin-Jin-Park style) with HRS rollout dates as treatment timing. Decomposes poverty reduction into market-liberalisation versus state-investment shares via accounting / Shapley-style decomposition over growth components.

Data

VariableSourceTransform
rural_poverty_headcount
outcome
world_bank_wdi:SI.POV.NAHCtier 2
level
gdp_per_capita_real
outcome
world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.KDtier 2
log_yoy
agricultural_productivity_proxy
outcome
faostat:productivitytier 2
log
hrs_rollout_share
treatment
derived:china_hrs_rollouttier 4
share
tve_employment_share
treatment
derived:china_tve_sharetier 4
share
state_investment_share_of_gdp
channel
world_bank_wdi:NE.GDI.FTOT.ZStier 2
level
trade_openness
channel
world_bank_wdi:NE.TRD.GNFS.ZStier 2
level
log_population
control
world_bank_wdi:SP.POP.TOTLtier 2
log

● ready  · ● pending  · ● reconstruct-needed

Detailed result card

Result card — china_1978_price_liberalisation_growth_decomposition

Verdict: INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — couldn't infer event_year

Pre-registration

  • Claim: Deng Xiaoping's 1978 reforms, by introducing price signals and household responsibility in agriculture and Township-Village-Enterprise market exchange, account for the majority of Chinese poverty reduction 1978–2000 — not state investment.
  • 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: Provincial event-study (1978-2000) of poverty headcount on HRS rollout timing with province+year FE; Shapley decomposition of growth into market-reform vs state-investment shares. Refute if market-reform share <50% or sign-flipped at p<0.10.
  • Event year: (not extracted)

Estimate

  • Error: couldn't infer event_year

Variables resolved

  • world_bank_wdi:SI.POV.NAHC → rural_poverty_headcount (outcome, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=1172)
  • world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.KD → gdp_per_capita_real (outcome, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=14066)
  • faostat:productivity → agricultural_productivity_proxy (outcome, publisher=faostat, n=290)
  • world_bank_wdi:NE.GDI.FTOT.ZS → state_investment_share_of_gdp (decomposition_channels, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=9870)
  • world_bank_wdi:NE.TRD.GNFS.ZS → trade_openness (decomposition_channels, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=10714)
  • world_bank_wdi:SP.POP.TOTL → log_population (controls, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=16935)

Variables missing data

  • derived:china_hrs_rollout (treatment, name=hrs_rollout_share)
  • derived:china_tve_share (treatment, name=tve_employment_share)

Generated by scripts/run_event_study.py at 2026-05-04T13:02:29+00:00

Notes

Maps the classical-liberal school's Deng-reforms-as-poverty-driver claim to a provincial event study + Shapley decomposition. Estimator and prior set; full pre-registration awaits steelman + human sign-off.

Authored framework. Read the transparency note.