IESET.
Hypotheses·labour·heritage_trade_freedom_employment_rate_current_gap

Countries in the top quartile of Heritage trade freedom in 2024 have higher latest-available employment rate than bottom-quartile countries, consistent with free-market country policy regimes outperforming less market-oriented regimes on this outcome.

PARTIALengine/runs/heritage_trade_freedom_employment_rate_current_gap

PARTIAL — gap sign/magnitude not decisive (diff=2.945, p=0.2223)

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 trade freedom is actually linked to better or worse employment rate from 2024 to 2024.

plain answer

The evidence is suggestive but not decisive. gap sign/magnitude not decisive (diff=2.945, p=0.2223)

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 183 country or place units from 2024 to 2024, using a descriptive design.

what was measured
What changed
  • Trade freedom
What we checked
  • Employment rate
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/heritage_trade_freedom_employment_rate_current_gap
1007550250202420242024AFGAGOALBAREARGARMAUS
illustrative sketch · run pending
No coefficients yet. When the model fires, this chart will show employment_rate across 183 sampled countries over 2024–2024.
The shapes above are stylised — none of the lines are real data.
Placeholder for heritage_trade_freedom_employment_rate_current_gap. Published chart will be generated from engine/runs/heritage_trade_freedom_employment_rate_current_gap/chart_data.json.

Pre-registration

pre-registered
first-spec commit 4c8ce8e · 2026-07-18T22:11:21Z

Countries in the top quartile of Heritage trade freedom in 2024 have higher latest-available employment rate than bottom-quartile countries, consistent with free-market country policy regimes outperforming less market-oriented regimes on this outcome.

Falsification criterion — what would disprove this

set before the run · honoured after

This hypothesis is considered falsified if:

SUPPORTED if the high-market quartile has the pre-registered outcome direction versus the low-market quartile at Welch p<=0.10. REFUTED if the opposite direction is significant at p<=0.10. Otherwise PARTIAL; insufficient group coverage is INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING.

formal test & threshold
test:      heritage_market_cross_section_heritage_trade_freedom_employment_rate_current_gap
threshold: [object Object]

Method

Template
descriptive
Sample
183 countries · 2024 – 2024
Evidence type
descriptive

Welch top-vs-bottom quartile mean contrast. This is a screen for broad market-order associations, not a causal policy effect estimate.

Data

VariableSourceTransform
employment_rate
outcome
world_bank_wdi:SL.EMP.TOTL.SP.ZStier 2
latest_available_country_level_since_2018
trade_freedom
treatment
heritage_ief:ief_paneltier 4
2024_component_score:trade_freedom

● ready  · ● pending  · ● reconstruct-needed

Detailed result card

Result card — heritage_trade_freedom_employment_rate_current_gap

Verdict: PARTIAL — gap sign/magnitude not decisive (diff=2.945, p=0.2223)

Design

  • Heritage component: trade_freedom using release year 2024.
  • Comparison: top 25% vs bottom 25% of market-score countries.
  • Outcome source: world_bank_wdi:SL.EMP.TOTL.SP.ZS latest available country observation since 2018.

Estimate

  • High-market mean: 60.11736170212766 over 47 countries.
  • Low-market mean: 57.17204651162792 over 43 countries.
  • Difference, high minus low: 2.945315190499741.
  • Welch p-value: 0.22231159830781277.

Caveat

This is a candidate cross-sectional screen. It is useful for broad Austrian/ordoliberal market-order triage, but it is not a causal design and should not be scoreboard-promoted without robustness checks.

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.