IESET.
Hypotheses·institutional quality·fiscal_rule_presence_dampens_statist_drift

Liberal democracies with binding numerical fiscal rules in place for at least 10 years over the 1976–2025 window show systematically lower (less positive, or more negative) statist-drift slopes than peers without such rules.

Mechanism: fiscal rules constrain the deficit-financed transfer flywheel that public-choice theory says drives the drift; if the managerial-flywheel hypothesis is correct, then constitutional / legal caps on it should bite. The corpus already contains the inputs — every movement coded on framework axes, every fiscal-rule introduction noted in its movement YAML — so the test reduces to comparing per-decade drift slopes between rule-bound and rule-free liberal democracies.

PARTIALengine/runs/fiscal_rule_presence_dampens_statist_drift

PARTIAL — gap is in the predicted direction (rule-bound -4.07 vs rule-free -1.10, gap -2.97) but Mann-Whitney one-sided p = 0.2357 fails to reject 0.10.

confidence cueThe result is useful, but not decisive. Treat it as a clue, not a settled conclusion.

policy briefMixed or noisy

In ordinary language

In plain terms, this asks whether binding fiscal rule 10y is actually linked to better or worse per decade drift slope from 1976 to 2025.

plain answer

The evidence is suggestive but not decisive. gap is in the predicted direction (rule-bound -4.07 vs rule-free -1.10, gap -2.97) but Mann-Whitney one-sided p = 0.2357 fails to reject 0.10.

why it matters

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

how the test works

It compares 26 country or place units from 1976 to 2025, using a descriptive design.

what was measured
What changed
  • Binding fiscal rule 10y
What we checked
  • Per decade drift slope
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/fiscal_rule_presence_dampens_statist_drift
1007550250197620012025USAGBRDEUFRAITAESPNLD
illustrative sketch · run pending
No coefficients yet. When the model fires, this chart will show per_decade_drift_slope across 26 sampled countries over 1976–2025.
The shapes above are stylised — none of the lines are real data.
Placeholder for fiscal_rule_presence_dampens_statist_drift. Published chart will be generated from engine/runs/fiscal_rule_presence_dampens_statist_drift/chart_data.json.

Pre-registration

pre-registered
first-spec commit bae09ab · 2026-04-29T22:09:42Z

Liberal democracies with binding numerical fiscal rules in place for at least 10 years over the 1976–2025 window show systematically lower (less positive, or more negative) statist-drift slopes than peers without such rules. Mechanism: fiscal rules constrain the deficit-financed transfer flywheel that public-choice theory says drives the drift; if the managerial-flywheel hypothesis is correct, then constitutional / legal caps on it should bite. The corpus already contains the inputs — every movement coded on framework axes, every fiscal-rule introduction noted in its movement YAML — so the test reduces to comparing per-decade drift slopes between rule-bound and rule-free liberal democracies.

Falsification criterion — what would disprove this

set before the run · honoured after

This hypothesis is considered falsified if:

SUPPORTED if the median per-decade drift slope of rule-bound countries is at least 1.0 index points per decade lower than the median slope of rule-free countries, AND a one-sided Mann-Whitney U test rejects the null of equal distributions at p<0.10. PARTIAL if the median gap is in the predicted direction but does not meet the magnitude or significance threshold. REFUTED if the median slope of rule-bound countries is equal to or greater than rule-free countries.

formal test & threshold
test:      two-sample comparison of per-decade drift slopes; non-parametric one-sided Mann-Whitney U
threshold: median(rule-bound slopes) <= median(rule-free slopes) - 1.0 AND Mann-Whitney U p<0.10 (one-sided)

Method

Template
descriptive
Sample
26 countries · 1976 – 2025
Evidence type
associational

Data

VariableSourceTransform
per_decade_drift_slope
outcome
constructed:from data/derived/country_drift.json (replication.py recomputes from movements/*.yaml axes_summary)tier 5
OLS slope of cumulative composite drift on year, scaled to index points per decade
binding_fiscal_rule_10y
treatment
constructed:hand-coded from IMF Fiscal Rules Database 2022 + EU Fiscal Rules Database 2024 + national legislationtier 5
binary: 1 if country had a binding numerical fiscal rule (debt brake, deficit ceiling, structural-balance target, debt-reduction rule) in force for at least 10 years over 1976–2025
log_initial_gdp_per_capita
control
world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.KDtier 2
log of GDP-per-capita at start of corpus window for each country (1976 or earliest available)

● ready  · ● pending  · ● reconstruct-needed

Detailed result card

Result card — fiscal_rule_presence_dampens_statist_drift

Verdict: PARTIAL — gap is in the predicted direction (rule-bound -4.07 vs rule-free -1.10, gap -2.97) but Mann-Whitney one-sided p = 0.2357 fails to reject 0.10.

Group statistics

| Group | n | Median slope/decade | Mean slope/decade | |---|---:|---:|---:| | Rule-bound | 14 | -4.07 | -3.12 | | Rule-free | 12 | -1.10 | -1.73 | | Gap (bound − free) | | -2.97 | |

Mann-Whitney one-sided p (H1: bound < free): 0.2357

Rule-bound countries

| Country | Slope/decade | Movements | |---|---:|---:| | ITA | -11.05 | 27 | | GRC | -9.69 | 14 | | NLD | -6.66 | 18 | | FIN | -6.60 | 12 | | CZE | -5.84 | 10 | | DNK | -5.63 | 9 | | ESP | -5.02 | 15 | | HUN | -3.12 | 10 | | POL | -1.01 | 16 | | CHE | -0.58 | 3 | | SWE | -0.45 | 14 | | IRL | -0.04 | 17 | | AUT | +4.02 | 15 | | DEU | +7.97 | 20 |

Rule-free countries

| Country | Slope/decade | Movements | |---|---:|---:| | PRT | -8.08 | 10 | | ISR | -7.93 | 16 | | CAN | -6.58 | 10 | | NZL | -5.66 | 10 | | BEL | -2.62 | 14 | | NOR | -1.48 | 9 | | FRA | -0.71 | 19 | | GBR | -0.43 | 21 | | AUS | +1.20 | 9 | | KOR | +1.95 | 11 | | JPN | +3.35 | 19 | | USA | +6.27 | 25 |

Steelman live concerns

See hypotheses/steelman/fiscal_rule_presence_dampens_statist_drift.md. Particularly relevant: rule-presence is endogenous to fiscal preferences, the binary lumps biting + non-biting rules together, and Sondervermögen- style off-balance-sheet vehicles can circumvent rules without flipping the treatment indicator.

Provenance

Reproduces from data/derived/country_drift.json + the FISCAL_RULE_BOUND dictionary in this script. Edit the dictionary + re-run to test alternative codings (every assignment carries a citation in the YAML).

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.