IESET.
Hypotheses·fiscal·gfc_household_debt_wage_stagnation_link

The 2007-2009 global financial crisis originated in household-debt-financed consumption sustaining aggregate demand despite stagnant real wages, a Minsky-plus-Marx pattern.

PARTIALengine/runs/gfc_household_debt_wage_stagnation_link

PARTIAL — coef=-0.01111, p=0; claim direction not auto-inferred

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 household debt to income is actually linked to better or worse real household consumption growth from 1995 to 2010.

plain answer

The evidence is suggestive but not decisive. coef=-0.01111, p=0; claim direction not auto-inferred

why it matters

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

how the test works

It compares 20 country or place units from 1995 to 2010, using a panel fe design, with fixed effects for country and year.

what was measured
What changed
  • Household debt to income
  • Household debt growth 5yr
What we checked
  • Real household consumption growth
  • Financial crisis severity 2008 2010
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/gfc_household_debt_wage_stagnation_link
1007550250199520032010AUSBELCANDEUDNKESPFIN
illustrative sketch · run pending
No coefficients yet. When the model fires, this chart will show real_household_consumption_growth across 20 sampled countries over 1995–2010.
The shapes above are stylised — none of the lines are real data.
Placeholder for gfc_household_debt_wage_stagnation_link. Published chart will be generated from engine/runs/gfc_household_debt_wage_stagnation_link/chart_data.json.

Who has skin in the game — schools predicting on this

10 schools 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.

Degrowth / Ecological Macroeconomicswins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callDemocratic Socialism (Bernsteinian revisionism + modern)wins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callEco-Socialism / Red-Greenwins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callMarket Socialism (Lange-Lerner tradition)wins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callMarxian Political Economywins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callMarxism-Leninism (central-planning implementation)wins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callModern Monetary Theorywins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callNew Keynesian (mainstream synthesis)wins if MIXEDpartial/no-callPost-Keynesianwins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callSocial Democraticwins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-call

Pre-registration

registration ordering unverified
first-spec commit 4c8ce8e · 2026-07-18T22:11:21Z
run generated · 2026-06-29T17:52:22Z
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.

The 2007-2009 global financial crisis originated in household-debt-financed consumption sustaining aggregate demand despite stagnant real wages, a Minsky-plus-Marx pattern.

Falsification criterion — what would disprove this

set before the run · honoured after

This hypothesis is considered falsified if:

The hypothesis is falsified if the estimated coefficient on the treatment variable is not negative at conventional significance (p < 0.05) in the preregistered panel specification with country and year fixed effects.

formal test & threshold
test:      gfc_household_debt_wage_stagnation_link_placeholder_test

Method

Template
panel_fe
Fixed effects
country, year
Clustering
country
Sample
20 countries · 1995 – 2010
Evidence type
associational

Cross-country panel of household-debt-to-GDP and real median wage growth in the run-up to GFC, with country and year FE. Mian-Sufi style decomposition of consumption growth into debt-financed versus wage-financed components.

Data

VariableSourceTransform
real_household_consumption_growth
outcome
world_bank_wdi:NE.CON.PRVT.KD.ZGtier 2
oecd:OECD.SDD.NADtier 2
pct_yoy
financial_crisis_severity_2008_2010
outcome
imf:NGDP_RPCHtier 2
peak_to_trough_pct
household_debt_to_gdp
treatment
world_bank_wdi:FS.AST.PRVT.GD.ZStier 2
pct_gdp_level
household_debt_growth_5yr
treatment
bis:WS_TCtier 2
pp_change_5yr
real_median_wage_growth
control
oecd:RealAverageWagestier 2
ilostat:mean_wages_realtier 2
pct_yoy
real_house_price_index
control
bis:WS_SPPtier 2
real_index_2010_100
short_term_policy_rate
control
fred:DFF (USA)tier 1
ecb:FM (EUR)tier 1
boe:IUDBEDR (GBR)tier 1
boj:policy_rate (JPN)tier 1
level_pct
financial_deregulation_index
control
fraser_efw:credit_market_regulationtier 4
level_0_to_10
labour_share_of_income
control
pwt:labshtier 3
oecd:LabourSharetier 2
level

● ready  · ● pending  · ● reconstruct-needed

Detailed result card

Result card — gfc_household_debt_wage_stagnation_link

Verdict: PARTIAL — coef=-0.01111, p=0; claim direction not auto-inferred

Pre-registration

  • Claim: The 2007-2009 global financial crisis originated in household-debt-financed consumption sustaining aggregate demand despite stagnant real wages, a Minsky-plus-Marx pattern.
  • Falsification rule: The hypothesis is falsified if the estimated coefficient on the treatment variable is not negative at conventional significance (p < 0.05) in the preregistered panel specification with country and year fixed effects.
  • Falsification test: gfc_household_debt_wage_stagnation_link_placeholder_test

Estimate

  • Method: linearmodels.PanelOLS
  • Coefficient (treatment): -0.01111
  • Std error: 1.549e-17
  • p-value: 0
  • Observations: 32, countries: 2
  • Within R²: -0.0454
  • Fixed effects: entity=True, time=True
  • Clustering: country

Variables resolved

  • world_bank_wdi:NE.CON.PRVT.KD.ZG; oecd:OECD.SDD.NAD,DSD_NAMAIN1@DF_HFCE,1.0 → real_household_consumption_growth (outcome, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=8533)
  • imf:NGDP_RPCH (peak-to-trough real GDP drawdown 2008Q1-2010Q4) → financial_crisis_severity_2008_2010 (outcome, publisher=imf, n=10914)
  • world_bank_wdi:FS.AST.PRVT.GD.ZS → household_debt_to_gdp (treatment, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=9562)
  • bis:WS_TC → household_debt_growth_5yr (treatment, publisher=bis, n=1914)
  • bis:WS_SPP → real_house_price_index (controls, publisher=bis, n=2272)
  • fred:DFF (USA); ecb:FM (EUR); boe:IUDBEDR (GBR); boj:policy_rate (JPN) → short_term_policy_rate (controls, publisher=fred+ecb+boe+boj, n=159)
  • pwt:labsh; oecd:LabourShare → labour_share_of_income (controls, publisher=pwt, n=7970)

Variables missing data

  • oecd:RealAverageWages; ilostat:mean_wages_real (controls, name=real_median_wage_growth) — vintage not on disk
  • fraser_efw:credit_market_regulation (controls, name=financial_deregulation_index) — vintage not on disk

Generated by scripts/run_panel_fe.py at 2026-06-29T17:52:22+00:00

Notes

Maps the Marxian school's GFC-household-debt-Minsky-Marx claim to a cross-country panel of household debt build-up vs real wage growth in the run-up to 2008. Estimator and prior set; full pre-registration awaits steelman + human sign-off.

Authored framework. Read the transparency note.