IESET.
Hypotheses·labour·labour_reform_brazil_2017_trabalhista_employment

Brazil's November 2017 Reforma Trabalhista (Law 13,467/2017: intermittent-contract creation, collective-bargaining prevalence over statute, judicial-fee imposition on labour claims) raised the Brazilian formal-employment rate by at least 1 pp by 2019 relative to a synthetic control of Latin- American peers, but did not reduce informal-sector share.

PARTIALengine/runs/labour_reform_brazil_2017_trabalhista_employment

PARTIAL — mean_gap=+3.998, |gap|/pre_sd=2.4, p_perm=0.571; claim direction ambiguous

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 brazil trabalhista 2017 is actually linked to better or worse formal employment share from 2010 to 2019.

plain answer

The evidence is suggestive but not decisive. mean_gap=+3.998, |gap|/pre_sd=2.4, p_perm=0.571; claim direction ambiguous

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 7 country or place units from 2010 to 2019, using a synth did design, with fixed effects for country and year.

what was measured
What changed
  • Brazil trabalhista 2017
What we checked
  • Formal employment share
  • Unemployment rate
  • Informal employment 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/labour_reform_brazil_2017_trabalhista_employment
1007550250201020152019BRAMEXARGCHLCOLPERURY
illustrative sketch · run pending
No coefficients yet. When the model fires, this chart will show formal_employment_share across 7 sampled countries over 2010–2019.
The shapes above are stylised — none of the lines are real data.
Placeholder for labour_reform_brazil_2017_trabalhista_employment. Published chart will be generated from engine/runs/labour_reform_brazil_2017_trabalhista_employment/chart_data.json.

Pre-registration

registration ordering unverified
first-spec commit 4c8ce8e · 2026-07-18T22:11:21Z
run generated · 2026-04-30T10:15:30Z
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.

Brazil's November 2017 Reforma Trabalhista (Law 13,467/2017: intermittent-contract creation, collective-bargaining prevalence over statute, judicial-fee imposition on labour claims) raised the Brazilian formal-employment rate by at least 1 pp by 2019 relative to a synthetic control of Latin- American peers, but did not reduce informal-sector share.

Falsification criterion — what would disprove this

set before the run · honoured after

This hypothesis is considered falsified if:

SUPPORTED if synth-DiD gap on Brazilian formal-employment rate > +1.0 pp by 2019 AND informal-sector share gap is not statistically more positive than zero at p<0.10. REFUTED if formal-employment gap is wrong-signed at p<0.10 OR informal-sector gap rises significantly (formalisation failure). PARTIAL if formal employment rises and informal employment also rises (both expanding — net employment expansion claim only).

formal test & threshold
test:      Synth-DiD on Brazilian formal-employment rate and informal share 2017-2019 vs Latin-American donor pool, placebo permutation at p<0.10.

Method

Template
synth_did
Fixed effects
country, year
Clustering
country
Sample
7 countries · 2010 – 2019
Evidence type
associational

Data

VariableSourceTransform
formal_employment_share
outcome
world_bank_wdi:SL.EMP.TOTL.SP.ZStier 2
level
unemployment_rate
outcome
world_bank_wdi:SL.UEM.TOTL.ZStier 2
level
informal_employment_share
outcome
world_bank_wdi:SL.UEM.TOTL.ZStier 2
level
brazil_trabalhista_2017
treatment
constructed:indicator for 2017-11-11 Reforma Trabalhista enactmenttier 5
indicator
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
terms_of_trade_index
control
world_bank_wdi:TT.PRI.MRCH.XD.WDtier 2
level

● ready  · ● pending  · ● reconstruct-needed

Detailed result card

Result card — labour_reform_brazil_2017_trabalhista_employment

Verdict: PARTIAL — mean_gap=+3.998, |gap|/pre_sd=2.4, p_perm=0.571; claim direction ambiguous

Pre-registration

  • Claim: Brazil's November 2017 Reforma Trabalhista (Law 13,467/2017: intermittent-contract creation, collective-bargaining prevalence over statute, judicial-fee imposition on labour claims) raised the Brazilian formal-employment rate by at least 1 pp by 2019 relative to a synthetic control of Latin- American peers, but did not reduce informal-sector share.
  • Falsification rule: SUPPORTED if synth-DiD gap on Brazilian formal-employment rate > +1.0 pp by 2019 AND informal-sector share gap is not statistically more positive than zero at p<0.10. REFUTED if formal-employment gap is wrong-signed at p<0.10 OR informal-sector gap rises significantly (formalisation failure). PARTIAL if formal employment rises and informal employment also rises (both expanding — net employment expansion claim only).

Synthetic-control estimate

  • shape: synth_did
  • treated_country: BRA
  • event_year: 2017
  • n_donors: 6
  • donor_weights (top): {'URY': 1.0, 'MEX': 0.0, 'ARG': 0.0, 'CHL': 0.0, 'COL': 0.0}
  • pre_rmse: 1.6633485589531223
  • pre_period_sd: 1.6447428225655683
  • mean_post_gap: 3.998333333333333
  • end_period_gap: 3.0999999999999996
  • post_period_years: [2017, 2019]
  • placebo_p_value: 0.5714285714285714
  • n_placebos: 6
  • method: synthetic-control via NNLS, permutation inference

Variables resolved

  • world_bank_wdi:SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS → unemployment_rate (outcome, n=8106)
  • world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.KD → gdp_per_capita_real (controls, n=14131)
  • world_bank_wdi:NE.TRD.GNFS.ZS → trade_openness (controls, n=10779)

Generated by scripts/run_synth_did.py at 2026-04-30T10:15:30+00:00

Strongest opposing argument

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

Notes

Treatment dated 2017-Q4 enactment, effective 2017-11-11. Sample window stops 2019 to exclude the COVID shock. Brazil is the largest Latin-American flexibilisation episode of the decade and remains contested. The informal-sector outcome is the steelman discipline: a reform that raised formal employment by reclassifying existing informal work has weaker welfare implications than one that genuinely expanded labour demand.

Authored framework. Read the transparency note.