IESET.
Hypotheses·regulatory·competition_policy_enforcement_innovation

Across advanced and middle-income economies 1990-2020, stronger antitrust and competition-policy enforcement — measured by merger- control intensity, cartel fines per GDP, and competition-authority staffing — predicts higher subsequent patent quality (forward citations per patent) and total-factor-productivity growth over 20-year windows.

The pre-registered claim is that countries in the top tercile of enforcement intensity show at least 0.25 percentage points higher annual TFP growth and 15% more citations per patent than countries in the bottom tercile, after controlling for initial income, R&D spending, and human capital.

INCONCLUSIVEengine/runs/competition_policy_enforcement_innovation

INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — no treatment variable loaded; missing: ['constructed: 0.4×merger_cases_per_gdp + 0.4×cartel_fines_per_gdp + 0.2×ca_staff_per_million_pop', 'oecd:competition_merger_cases', 'oecd:competition_cartel_fines']

confidence cueResult card produced; verdict unclassified.

policy briefCoverage too thin

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

This test cannot make a firm call yet. no treatment variable loaded; missing: ['constructed: 0.4×merger_cases_per_gdp + 0.4×cartel_fines_per_gdp + 0.2×ca_staff_per_million_pop', 'oecd:competition_merger_cases', 'oecd:competition_cartel_fines']

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 36 country or place units from 1990 to 2020, using a panel fe design, with fixed effects for country and year.

what was measured
What changed
  • Competition enforcement intensity
  • Merger control cases per income
What we checked
  • Productivity growth 20yr
  • Patent citations per patent
  • Patent quality index
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/competition_policy_enforcement_innovation
1007550250199020052020USAGBRDEUFRAITAESPNLD
illustrative sketch · run pending
No coefficients yet. When the model fires, this chart will show tfp_growth_20yr across 36 sampled countries over 1990–2020.
The shapes above are stylised — none of the lines are real data.
Placeholder for competition_policy_enforcement_innovation. Published chart will be generated from engine/runs/competition_policy_enforcement_innovation/chart_data.json.

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.

Across advanced and middle-income economies 1990-2020, stronger antitrust and competition-policy enforcement — measured by merger- control intensity, cartel fines per GDP, and competition-authority staffing — predicts higher subsequent patent quality (forward citations per patent) and total-factor-productivity growth over 20-year windows. The pre-registered claim is that countries in the top tercile of enforcement intensity show at least 0.25 percentage points higher annual TFP growth and 15% more citations per patent than countries in the bottom tercile, after controlling for initial income, R&D spending, and human capital.

Falsification criterion — what would disprove this

set before the run · honoured after

This hypothesis is considered falsified if:

Not supported if (a) the panel-FE coefficient on enforcement intensity is not positive and significant at p<0.05 on either TFP growth or patent citations, OR (b) the top-tercile vs bottom-tercile mean gap in TFP growth is below 0.15 pp/year, OR (c) the result is driven entirely by the US (disappears when US is dropped). A "big is beautiful" / industrial-policy reading wins if merger-control intensity is negatively associated with patent quality (suggesting that blocking mergers prevents scale economies in R&D).

formal test & threshold
test:      panel_fe_enforcement_intensity_on_tfp_and_patents
threshold: panel_FE_beta(enforcement_intensity → tfp_growth_20yr) > 0 at p<0.05 AND panel_FE_beta(enforcement_intensity → citations_per_patent) > 0 at p<0.05 AND top_tercile_mean_tfp_gap >= 0.25 pp/yr

Method

Template
panel_fe
Fixed effects
country, year
Clustering
country
Sample
36 countries · 1990 – 2020
Evidence type
associational

Panel FE with forward-differenced outcomes on lagged enforcement intensity. Tercile-comparison robustness. IV robustness using EU-driven competition-reform timing as instrument for enforcement intensity in European sub-sample. Robustness to patent-quality definition (USPTO vs WIPO citations).

Data

VariableSourceTransform
tfp_growth_20yr
outcome
pwt:rtfpnatier 3
log_diff_20yr
patent_citations_per_patent
outcome
wipo:patent_citationstier 2
level
patent_quality_index
outcome
constructed:citations_per_patent × claims_per_patenttier 5
level
competition_enforcement_intensity
treatment
constructed:0.4×merger_cases_per_gdp + 0.4×cartel_fines_per_gdp + 0.2×ca_staff_per_million_poptier 5
level
merger_control_cases_per_gdp
treatment
oecd:competition_merger_casestier 2
per_gdp
cartel_fines_per_gdp
treatment
oecd:competition_cartel_finestier 2
per_gdp
log_initial_gdp_pc
control
world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.KDtier 2
log
rd_spending_share_gdp
control
world_bank_wdi:GB.XPD.RSDV.GD.ZStier 2
level
human_capital_index
control
pwt:hctier 3
level
trade_openness
control
world_bank_wdi:NE.TRD.GNFS.ZStier 2
level
ipr_protection_index
control
fraser_efw:property_rightstier 4
level

● ready  · ● pending  · ● reconstruct-needed

Detailed result card

Result card — competition_policy_enforcement_innovation

Verdict: INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — no treatment variable loaded; missing: ['constructed: 0.4×merger_cases_per_gdp + 0.4×cartel_fines_per_gdp + 0.2×ca_staff_per_million_pop', 'oecd:competition_merger_cases', 'oecd:competition_cartel_fines']

Pre-registration

  • Claim: Across advanced and middle-income economies 1990-2020, stronger antitrust and competition-policy enforcement — measured by merger- control intensity, cartel fines per GDP, and competition-authority staffing — predicts higher subsequent patent quality (forward citations per patent) and total-factor-productivity growth over 20-year windows. The pre-registered claim is that countries in the top tercile of enforcement intensity show at least 0.25 percentage points higher annual TFP growth and 15% more citations per patent than countries in the bottom tercile, after controlling for initial income, R&D spending, and human capital.
  • Falsification rule: Not supported if (a) the panel-FE coefficient on enforcement intensity is not positive and significant at p<0.05 on either TFP growth or patent citations, OR (b) the top-tercile vs bottom-tercile mean gap in TFP growth is below 0.15 pp/year, OR (c) the result is driven entirely by the US (disappears when US is dropped). A "big is beautiful" / industrial-policy reading wins if merger-control intensity is negatively associated with patent quality (suggesting that blocking mergers prevents scale economies in R&D).
  • Falsification test: panel_fe_enforcement_intensity_on_tfp_and_patents

Estimate

  • Error: no treatment variable loaded; missing: ['constructed: 0.4×merger_cases_per_gdp + 0.4×cartel_fines_per_gdp + 0.2×ca_staff_per_million_pop', 'oecd:competition_merger_cases', 'oecd:competition_cartel_fines']

Variables resolved

  • pwt:rtfpna → tfp_growth_20yr (outcome, publisher=pwt, n=6407)
  • world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.KD → log_initial_gdp_pc (controls, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=12104)
  • world_bank_wdi:GB.XPD.RSDV.GD.ZS → rd_spending_share_gdp (controls, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=3140)
  • pwt:hc → human_capital_index (controls, publisher=pwt, n=8637)
  • world_bank_wdi:NE.TRD.GNFS.ZS → trade_openness (controls, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=10714)
  • fraser_efw:property_rights → ipr_protection_index (controls, publisher=fraser_efw, n=4806)

Variables missing data

  • wipo:patent_citations (outcome, name=patent_citations_per_patent) — vintage not on disk
  • constructed: citations_per_patent × claims_per_patent (outcome, name=patent_quality_index) — vintage not on disk
  • constructed: 0.4×merger_cases_per_gdp + 0.4×cartel_fines_per_gdp + 0.2×ca_staff_per_million_pop (treatment, name=competition_enforcement_intensity) — vintage not on disk
  • oecd:competition_merger_cases (treatment, name=merger_control_cases_per_gdp) — vintage not on disk
  • oecd:competition_cartel_fines (treatment, name=cartel_fines_per_gdp) — vintage not on disk

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

Competition-authority staffing and cartel-fine data are patchy outside OECD; the composite index will have substantial missing data for emerging markets. This is flagged as a data-dependency.

Authored framework. Read the transparency note.