IESET.
Hypotheses·regulatory·competition_enforcement_consumer_welfare_effect

Strict competition-policy enforcement (EU DG-Comp, Bundeskartellamt) produces higher consumer welfare than laissez-faire antitrust (US post-Bork consumer-welfare-standard narrowing) in sectors prone to concentration.

INCONCLUSIVEengine/runs/competition_enforcement_consumer_welfare_effect

INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — insufficient observations after listwise deletion (22)

confidence cueResult card produced; verdict unclassified.

policy briefCoverage too thin

In ordinary language

In plain terms, this asks whether strict competition enforcement indicator is actually linked to better or worse industry markup index from 1980 to 2023.

plain answer

This test cannot make a firm call yet. insufficient observations after listwise deletion (22)

why it matters

This matters because regulatory claims should change belief only when they survive a pre-declared empirical test.

how the test works

It compares 11 country or place units from 1980 to 2023, using a panel fe design, with fixed effects for country and sector and year.

what was measured
What changed
  • Strict competition enforcement indicator
  • Rich-country pmr index overall
What we checked
  • Industry markup index
  • Hhi concentration index
  • Consumer price to marginal cost ratio
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

0 input datasets, 0 unresolved missing series, provenance status: no input vintages recorded.

Results

engine/runs/competition_enforcement_consumer_welfare_effect
1007550250198020022023USADEUFRAGBRITAESPNLD
illustrative sketch · run pending
No coefficients yet. When the model fires, this chart will show industry_markup_index across 11 sampled countries over 1980–2023.
The shapes above are stylised — none of the lines are real data.
Placeholder for competition_enforcement_consumer_welfare_effect. Published chart will be generated from engine/runs/competition_enforcement_consumer_welfare_effect/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.

Ordoliberalism (Freiburg School)wins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-call

Pre-registration

registration ordering unverified
first-spec commit 4c8ce8e · 2026-07-18T22:11:21Z
run generated · 2026-06-29T17:54:28Z
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.

Strict competition-policy enforcement (EU DG-Comp, Bundeskartellamt) produces higher consumer welfare than laissez-faire antitrust (US post-Bork consumer-welfare-standard narrowing) in sectors prone to concentration.

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:      Cross-country DiD on concentration-prone sectors EU vs US 1980-2023; markup gap (EU-US) <0 with p<0.10 in concentration-prone sectors supports the strict-enforcement claim.

Method

Template
panel_fe
Fixed effects
country, sector, year
Clustering
country
Sample
11 countries · 1980 – 2023
Evidence type
associational

Cross-country sectoral panel-FE 1980-2023 of markup / concentration on competition-enforcement-strictness indicator and OECD PMR. Country, sector, year FE; country-clustered SEs. Caveat: 'consumer welfare' is multi-dimensional (price, choice, innovation) — markup proxies are the closest tractable outcome.

Data

VariableSourceTransform
industry_markup_index
outcome
oecd_pmr:network_sectors_indicatortier 4
log
hhi_concentration_index
outcome
oecd:industry_concentrationtier 2
level
consumer_price_to_marginal_cost_ratio
outcome
oecd:value_added_decompositiontier 2
level
strict_competition_enforcement_indicator
treatment
constructed:indicator = 1 for EU DG-Comp jurisdictions and DEU (Bundeskartellamt); 0 for USA post-1980 (post-Bork consumer-welfare-stier 5
indicator
oecd_pmr_index_overall
treatment
oecd_pmr:overalltier 4
level
log_gdp_per_capita
control
world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.KDtier 2
log
trade_openness
control
world_bank_wdi:NE.TRD.GNFS.ZStier 2
level

● ready  · ● pending  · ● reconstruct-needed

Detailed result card

Result card — competition_enforcement_consumer_welfare_effect

Verdict: INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — insufficient observations after listwise deletion (22)

Pre-registration

  • Claim: Strict competition-policy enforcement (EU DG-Comp, Bundeskartellamt) produces higher consumer welfare than laissez-faire antitrust (US post-Bork consumer-welfare-standard narrowing) in sectors prone to concentration.
  • 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: Cross-country DiD on concentration-prone sectors EU vs US 1980-2023; markup gap (EU-US) <0 with p<0.10 in concentration-prone sectors supports the strict-enforcement claim.

Estimate

  • Error: insufficient observations after listwise deletion (22)

Variables resolved

  • oecd_pmr:network_sectors_indicator → industry_markup_index (outcome, publisher=oecd_pmr, n=105)
  • constructed: indicator = 1 for EU DG-Comp jurisdictions and DEU (Bundeskartellamt); 0 for USA post-1980 (post-Bork consumer-welfare-standard narrowing). → strict_competition_enforcement_indicator (treatment, publisher=constructed, n=484)
  • oecd_pmr:overall → oecd_pmr_index_overall (treatment, publisher=oecd_pmr, n=105)
  • world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.KD → log_gdp_per_capita (controls, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=12104)
  • world_bank_wdi:NE.TRD.GNFS.ZS → trade_openness (controls, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=10714)

Variables missing data

  • oecd:industry_concentration (outcome, name=hhi_concentration_index) — vintage not on disk
  • oecd:value_added_decomposition (outcome, name=consumer_price_to_marginal_cost_ratio) — vintage not on disk

Generated by scripts/run_panel_fe.py at 2026-06-29T17:54:28+00:00

Notes

Origin is auto-generated coverage-gap stub seeded from ordoliberal framing of strict EU/German competition enforcement as producing higher consumer welfare than US post-Bork narrowing. Human review required.

Authored framework. Read the transparency note.