IESET.
Hypotheses·labour·industrial_concentration_labour_share_link

Industrial concentration (top-4 firm share) in US manufacturing and retail sectors rose 1997-2020 alongside declining labour share, consistent with monopolisation tendency.

INCONCLUSIVEengine/runs/industrial_concentration_labour_share_link

INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — no treatment variable loaded; missing: ['derived:bea_compustat_industry_cr4', 'derived:bea_compustat_industry_hhi', 'oecd:OECD.SDD.TPS,DSD_PDB@DF_PDB_PT,1.0']

confidence cueResult card produced; verdict unclassified.

policy briefCoverage too thin

In ordinary language

In plain terms, this asks whether industry concentration cr4 is actually linked to better or worse labour share of value added from 1997 to 2020.

plain answer

This test cannot make a firm call yet. no treatment variable loaded; missing: ['derived:bea_compustat_industry_cr4', 'derived:bea_compustat_industry_hhi', 'oecd:OECD.SDD.TPS,DSD_PDB@DF_PDB_PT,1.0']

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 1997 to 2020, using a panel fe design, with fixed effects for industry and year.

what was measured
What changed
  • Industry concentration cr4
  • Industry hhi
What we checked
  • Labour share of value added
  • Nonfarm compensation 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/industrial_concentration_labour_share_link
1007550250199720092020USA
illustrative sketch · run pending
No coefficients yet. When the model fires, this chart will show labour_share_of_value_added across 1 sampled countries over 1997–2020.
The shapes above are stylised — none of the lines are real data.
Placeholder for industrial_concentration_labour_share_link. Published chart will be generated from engine/runs/industrial_concentration_labour_share_link/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.

Marxian Political Economywins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-call

Pre-registration

registration ordering unverified
first-spec commit 4c8ce8e · 2026-07-18T22:11:21Z
run generated · 2026-06-29T17:53:37Z
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.

Industrial concentration (top-4 firm share) in US manufacturing and retail sectors rose 1997-2020 alongside declining labour share, consistent with monopolisation tendency.

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:      US industry-year panel FE regression of labour share of value added on CR4/HHI 1997-2020 with industry/year FE and intangibles-intensity control; supported if concentration coefficient is negative at p<0.10 and labour-share decline >2pp across the period.

Method

Template
panel_fe
Fixed effects
industry, year
Clustering
industry
Sample
1 countries · 1997 – 2020
Evidence type
associational

US industry-year panel (BEA / Compustat) regressing labour share on concentration measures (CR4, HHI) with industry and year FE. Robustness: control for intangible-investment intensity to address measurement-shift critique.

Data

VariableSourceTransform
labour_share_of_value_added
outcome
pwt:labshtier 3
level
nonfarm_compensation_share
outcome
fred:W270RE1A156NBEAtier 1
level
industry_concentration_cr4
treatment
derived:bea_compustat_industry_cr4tier 4
level
industry_hhi
treatment
derived:bea_compustat_industry_hhitier 4
level
intangible_investment_share
treatment
oecd:OECD.SDD.TPStier 2
level
gdp_per_capita_real
control
world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.KDtier 2
log
trade_openness
control
world_bank_wdi:NE.TRD.GNFS.ZStier 2
level
union_density
control
oecd:OECD.ELS.SAEtier 2
level

● ready  · ● pending  · ● reconstruct-needed

Detailed result card

Result card — industrial_concentration_labour_share_link

Verdict: INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — no treatment variable loaded; missing: ['derived:bea_compustat_industry_cr4', 'derived:bea_compustat_industry_hhi', 'oecd:OECD.SDD.TPS,DSD_PDB@DF_PDB_PT,1.0']

Pre-registration

  • Claim: Industrial concentration (top-4 firm share) in US manufacturing and retail sectors rose 1997-2020 alongside declining labour share, consistent with monopolisation tendency.
  • 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.
  • Falsification test: US industry-year panel FE regression of labour share of value added on CR4/HHI 1997-2020 with industry/year FE and intangibles-intensity control; supported if concentration coefficient is negative at p<0.10 and labour-share decline >2pp across the period.

Estimate

  • Error: no treatment variable loaded; missing: ['derived:bea_compustat_industry_cr4', 'derived:bea_compustat_industry_hhi', 'oecd:OECD.SDD.TPS,DSD_PDB@DF_PDB_PT,1.0']

Variables resolved

  • pwt:labsh → labour_share_of_value_added (outcome, publisher=pwt, n=7970)
  • fred:W270RE1A156NBEA → nonfarm_compensation_share (outcome, publisher=fred, n=77)
  • world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.KD → gdp_per_capita_real (controls, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=12104)
  • world_bank_wdi:NE.TRD.GNFS.ZS → trade_openness (controls, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=10714)
  • oecd:OECD.ELS.SAE,DSD_TU@DF_TUD,1.0 → union_density (controls, publisher=oecd, n=1825)

Variables missing data

  • derived:bea_compustat_industry_cr4 (treatment, name=industry_concentration_cr4) — vintage not on disk
  • derived:bea_compustat_industry_hhi (treatment, name=industry_hhi) — vintage not on disk
  • oecd:OECD.SDD.TPS,DSD_PDB@DF_PDB_PT,1.0 (treatment, name=intangible_investment_share) — vintage not on disk

Generated by scripts/run_panel_fe.py at 2026-06-29T17:53:37+00:00

Notes

Stub seeded from a Marxian school prediction about rising industrial concentration co-moving with declining labour share. Intangibles-measurement and sector-mix shifts are major confounds; needs human review of robustness controls.

Authored framework. Read the transparency note.