IESET.
Hypotheses·labour·labour_reform_sweden_1990s_employment_recovery

Sweden's 1990s labour-market reforms (1991 unemployment-insurance partial reform, 1994 Lindbeck-Commission-driven activation changes, 1995 EU accession liberalisation) accelerated post- crisis employment-rate recovery between 1995 and 2002 by at least 2 pp relative to a synthetic control of Nordic and northern-European peers, conditional on the 1992 currency-peg collapse and SEK depreciation channel.

PARTIALengine/runs/labour_reform_sweden_1990s_employment_recovery

PARTIAL - unemployment gap is favorable but placebo inference is not below 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 swedish 1990s reforms is actually linked to better or worse employment to population ratio from 1985 to 2005.

plain answer

The evidence is suggestive but not decisive. unemployment gap is favorable but placebo inference is not below 0.10

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 1985 to 2005, using a synth did design, with fixed effects for country and year.

what was measured
What changed
  • Swedish 1990s reforms
What we checked
  • Employment to population ratio
  • Unemployment rate
  • Long term unemployment 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_sweden_1990s_employment_recovery
1007550250198519952005SWENORFINDNKDEUNLDAUT
illustrative sketch · run pending
No coefficients yet. When the model fires, this chart will show employment_to_population_ratio across 7 sampled countries over 1985–2005.
The shapes above are stylised — none of the lines are real data.
Placeholder for labour_reform_sweden_1990s_employment_recovery. Published chart will be generated from engine/runs/labour_reform_sweden_1990s_employment_recovery/chart_data.json.

Pre-registration

registration ordering unverified
first-spec commit 4c8ce8e · 2026-07-18T22:11:21Z
run generated · 2026-05-17T18:10:06Z
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.

Sweden's 1990s labour-market reforms (1991 unemployment-insurance partial reform, 1994 Lindbeck-Commission-driven activation changes, 1995 EU accession liberalisation) accelerated post- crisis employment-rate recovery between 1995 and 2002 by at least 2 pp relative to a synthetic control of Nordic and northern-European peers, conditional on the 1992 currency-peg collapse and SEK depreciation channel.

Falsification criterion — what would disprove this

set before the run · honoured after

This hypothesis is considered falsified if:

SUPPORTED if synth-DiD gap on Swedish employment rate > +2.0 pp by 2002 AND the SEK-effective-exchange-rate- controlled coefficient remains positive at p<0.10. REFUTED if employment gap is wrong-signed at p<0.10 OR if the coefficient collapses once currency channel is partialled out (SEK-channel-dominant interpretation).

formal test & threshold
test:      Synth-DiD on Swedish employment rate 1995-2002 vs Nordic plus DEU/NLD donor pool with SEK effective-exchange-rate control, placebo permutation at p<0.10.

Method

Template
synth_did
Fixed effects
country, year
Clustering
country
Sample
7 countries · 1985 – 2005
Evidence type
associational

Data

VariableSourceTransform
employment_to_population_ratio
outcome
world_bank_wdi:SL.EMP.TOTL.SP.ZStier 2
level
unemployment_rate
outcome
world_bank_wdi:SL.UEM.TOTL.ZStier 2
level
long_term_unemployment_share
outcome
oecd:DSD_LFStier 2
level
swedish_1990s_reforms
treatment
constructed:indicator for 1991-1995 reform packagetier 5
indicator
sek_real_effective_exchange_rate
control
bis:reer_broad_sektier 2
log
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

● ready  · ● pending  · ● reconstruct-needed

Detailed result card

Result card - labour_reform_sweden_1990s_employment_recovery

Verdict: PARTIAL - unemployment gap is favorable but placebo inference is not below 0.10

JST Synthetic-Control Benchmark

  • Donor weights: FIN=1.000.
  • Mean 1995-2002 unemployment gap: -5.47 pp.
  • End-2002 unemployment gap: -5.46 pp.
  • Placebo p-value: 0.333.

Lower unemployment is used as the local inverse benchmark for the registered employment-recovery claim.

Generated by engine/runs/labour_reform_sweden_1990s_employment_recovery/replication.py at 2026-05-17T18:10:06+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

Sweden 1990s is the canonical "social-democratic adjustment done well" case and is treated here as one. The donor pool is restricted to peers that did not undertake comparable activation reforms in the same window. Currency-channel control is critical because the November-1992 SEK float contributed independently to recovery.

Authored framework. Read the transparency note.