IESET.
Hypotheses·labour·emilia_romagna_coop_employment_resilience

Cooperative-sector firms in northern Italy (Emilia-Romagna) sustained employment through the 2008-2012 recession at rates higher than matched private-sector firms of similar size.

INCONCLUSIVEengine/runs/emilia_romagna_coop_employment_resilience

INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — need >= 3 countries (1 treated + 2 donors), got 1

confidence cueResult card produced; verdict unclassified.

policy briefCoverage too thin

In ordinary language

In plain terms, this asks whether emilia romagna coop density is actually linked to better or worse regional employment total from 2005 to 2014.

plain answer

This test cannot make a firm call yet. need >= 3 countries (1 treated + 2 donors), got 1

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 1 country or place units from 2005 to 2014, using a synth did design, with fixed effects for firm and year.

what was measured
What changed
  • Emilia romagna coop density
  • Gfc recession window
What we checked
  • Regional employment total
  • Regional unemployment rate
  • Cooperative sector employment share
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/emilia_romagna_coop_employment_resilience
1007550250200520102014ITA
illustrative sketch · run pending
No coefficients yet. When the model fires, this chart will show regional_employment_total across 1 sampled countries over 2005–2014.
The shapes above are stylised — none of the lines are real data.
Placeholder for emilia_romagna_coop_employment_resilience. Published chart will be generated from engine/runs/emilia_romagna_coop_employment_resilience/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.

Market Socialism (Lange-Lerner tradition)wins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-call

Pre-registration

pre-registered
first-spec commit bae09ab · 2026-04-29T22:09:42Z
run generated · 2026-05-04T13:02:32Z

Cooperative-sector firms in northern Italy (Emilia-Romagna) sustained employment through the 2008-2012 recession at rates higher than matched private-sector firms of similar size.

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:      Synthetic DiD on Emilia-Romagna cooperative-sector employment 2008-2012 vs matched donor pool of Italian regions controlling for sector mix; supported if employment-retention gap exceeds matched comparator by >5pp at p<0.10.

Method

Template
synth_did
Fixed effects
firm, year
Clustering
firm
Sample
1 countries · 2005 – 2014
Evidence type
associational

Synthetic DiD comparing Emilia-Romagna cooperative-sector employment trajectory through GFC against a matched donor pool of non-cooperative firms (matched on size, sector, region) using Italian firm-level panel data.

Data

VariableSourceTransform
regional_employment_total
outcome
eurostat:lfst_r_lfe2emptier 1
log
regional_unemployment_rate
outcome
eurostat:lfst_r_lfu3rttier 1
level
cooperative_sector_employment_share
outcome
eurostat:nama_10r_2emhrwtier 1
share
emilia_romagna_coop_density
treatment
derived:italian_region_coop_sharetier 4
level
gfc_recession_window
treatment
derived:gfc_recession_indicatortier 4
indicator
regional_gdp_per_capita
control
eurostat:nama_10r_2gdptier 1
log
regional_industrial_composition
control
eurostat:nama_10r_3gvatier 1
share
italian_unemployment_rate
control
world_bank_wdi:SL.UEM.TOTL.ZStier 2
level

● ready  · ● pending  · ● reconstruct-needed

Detailed result card

Result card — emilia_romagna_coop_employment_resilience

Verdict: INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — need >= 3 countries (1 treated + 2 donors), got 1

Pre-registration

  • Claim: Cooperative-sector firms in northern Italy (Emilia-Romagna) sustained employment through the 2008-2012 recession at rates higher than matched private-sector firms of similar size.
  • 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.

Synthetic-control estimate

  • Error: need >= 3 countries (1 treated + 2 donors), got 1

Variables resolved

  • eurostat:lfst_r_lfe2emp → regional_employment_total (outcome, n=12111)
  • eurostat:lfst_r_lfu3rt → regional_unemployment_rate (outcome, n=11962)
  • eurostat:nama_10r_2emhrw → cooperative_sector_employment_share (outcome, n=9554)
  • eurostat:nama_10r_2gdp → regional_gdp_per_capita (controls, n=11453)
  • eurostat:nama_10r_3gva → regional_industrial_composition (controls, n=43702)
  • world_bank_wdi:SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS → italian_unemployment_rate (controls, n=8071)

Generated by scripts/run_synth_did.py at 2026-05-04T13:02:32+00:00

Notes

Stub seeded from a market-socialist school prediction about Emilia-Romagna cooperative-sector employment resilience through GFC. Distinctive industrial-district context confounds matching; needs human review of donor-pool construction.

Authored framework. Read the transparency note.