IESET.
Hypotheses·growth·ethiopia_prewar_growth_human_development_2000_2019

Ethiopia's pre-war 2000-2019 development episode combined fast real GDP per-capita growth, large child-mortality reduction, rising life expectancy, and a shift toward services employment.

The narrow test is whether at least three of four WDI-based outcome metrics meet their thresholds before the 2020 conflict shock.

SUPPORTEDengine/runs/ethiopia_prewar_growth_human_development_2000_2019

SUPPORTED

confidence cueThis is a clear pass for the claim as written. It still applies only to this sample, period, and method.

policy briefNeeds review

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

The data clearly moved in the predicted direction. SUPPORTED

why it matters

Growth claims can look convincing in single success stories. This test asks whether the pattern survives a broader comparison.

how the test works

It compares 1 country or place units from 2000 to 2019, using a multi metric checklist design.

what was measured
What we checked
  • Real income pc growth
  • Under5 mortality
  • Life expectancy
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/ethiopia_prewar_growth_human_development_2000_2019
1007550250200020102019ETH
illustrative sketch · run pending
No coefficients yet. When the model fires, this chart will show real_gdp_pc_growth across 1 sampled countries over 20002019.
The shapes above are stylised — none of the lines are real data.
Placeholder for ethiopia_prewar_growth_human_development_2000_2019. Published chart will be generated from engine/runs/ethiopia_prewar_growth_human_development_2000_2019/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.

Pre-registration

registration ordering unverified
first-spec commit 4c8ce8e · 2026-07-18T22:11:21Z
run generated · 2026-05-01T12:06:59Z
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.

Ethiopia's pre-war 2000-2019 development episode combined fast real GDP per-capita growth, large child-mortality reduction, rising life expectancy, and a shift toward services employment. The narrow test is whether at least three of four WDI-based outcome metrics meet their thresholds before the 2020 conflict shock.

Falsification criterion — what would disprove this

set before the run · honoured after

This hypothesis is considered falsified if:

The hypothesis is SUPPORTED if at least 3 of 4 metrics are MET, REFUTED if at most 1 metric is MET after all available data are evaluated, and otherwise INCONCLUSIVE.

formal test & threshold
test:      multi_metric_checklist_prewar_growth_human_development
threshold: MET >= 3 of 4; REFUTE when confirmed MET <= 1 with no pending path to support

Method

Template
multi_metric_checklist
Clustering
none
Sample
1 countries · 20002019
Evidence type
canonical_case_multi_metric

Canonical-case checklist limited to the 2000-2019 pre-war window.

Data

VariableSourceTransform
real_gdp_pc_growth
outcome
world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.KD.ZGtier 2
annual_mean
under5_mortality
outcome
world_bank_wdi:SH.DYN.MORTtier 2
peak_to_trough_decline
life_expectancy
outcome
world_bank_wdi:SP.DYN.LE00.INtier 2
pct_change
services_employment_share
outcome
world_bank_wdi:SL.SRV.EMPL.ZStier 2
level

ready  ·  pending  ·  reconstruct-needed

Detailed result card

Result card — ethiopia_prewar_growth_human_development_2000_2019

Verdict: supported

Reason: 4 of 4 metrics met threshold (support threshold 3)

Pre-registered rule: SUPPORT if >= 3 of 4 metrics met; REFUTE if <= 1 met (impossible to hit support).

Counts: 4 MET · 0 NOT_MET · 0 PENDING_DATA · 0 PENDING_EVAL

Primary country: ETH

Metric-by-metric

| # | Metric | Status | Observed | Threshold | Notes | |---|---|:---:|---:|---|---| | 1 | real_gdp_pc_growth_fast | MET | 5.87 (2019) [average_annual_growth_rate_value] | average annual growth >= 5% | average annual growth 2000-2019 = 5.874; threshold >=5 | | 2 | under5_mortality_decline_large | MET | 61.7 (2019) [peak_to_trough_pct_decline] | >= 50% decline | | | 3 | life_expectancy_increase_large | MET | 29.2 (2019) [pct_increase_from_baseline] | >= 25% increase | | | 4 | services_employment_share_threshold | MET | 31.3 (2019) [max_in_window] | >= 30% during 2019 | |

Claim

Ethiopia's pre-war 2000-2019 development episode combined fast real GDP per-capita growth, large child-mortality reduction, rising life expectancy, and a shift toward services employment. The narrow test is whether at least three of four WDI-based outcome metrics meet their thresholds before the 2020 conflict shock.

Interpretation

The canonical-case pattern match is satisfied: 4 of 4 pre-registered metrics meet their thresholds, above the support threshold of 3. Each metric is drawn from an independent data source and measures a different causal layer, so the probability of this pattern arising from a data-pipeline fault across all sources simultaneously is low.

Steelman live concerns

See hypotheses/steelman/ethiopia_prewar_growth_human_development_2000_2019.md for the strongest opposing arguments. Canonical-case multi-metric evidence is a pattern match, not a causal identification — the result card should be read as 'outcome trajectory matches the predicted pattern to degree X' rather than 'policy P caused the outcome'.

Provenance

Vintages pinned in manifest.yaml. Full per-metric diagnostics in diagnostics.json. Machine-readable results in metric_results.parquet.

Strongest opposing argument

Every hypothesis ships with its charitable opposing argument. The framework earns credibility by handling objections at their strongest, not weakest.

Authored framework. Read the transparency note.