IESET.
Hypotheses·monetary·mena_lebanon_currency_collapse_real_economy_2019_2024

Lebanon's October-2019-onwards economic collapse (banking-sector freeze, BdL multi-rate regime, lira hyperinflation, GDP contraction, dollarisation reversal) produced one of the largest real-economy contractions of the 21st century, with World Bank estimating GDP shrinking ~58% peak-to-trough.

The pre-registered claim is that, treating Lebanon as a single canonical-case multi-metric instance, at least 5 of 6 pre-registered extreme thresholds are met: (a) cumulative real-GDP-pc decline >40% from 2018 peak, (b) lira cumulative depreciation >95% in unofficial market, (c) CPI inflation >100% YoY at peak, (d) banking-sector total assets in real terms decline >70%, (e) emigration outflow >10% of pre-crisis population, (f) electricity supply hours per day fall below 4. The null counter-claim is that the cumulative effect is large but not at the canonical-extreme thresholds (e.g. emigration figure depends on unverified estimates).

REFUTEDengine/runs/mena_lebanon_currency_collapse_real_economy_2019_2024

REFUTED

confidence cueThis test cuts against the claim as written or misses its pre-declared threshold.

policy briefNeeds review

In ordinary language

In plain terms, this asks whether the policy story survives a real-world data check from 2010 to 2024.

plain answer

The data did not support the prediction. REFUTED

why it matters

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

how the test works

It compares 1 country or place units from 2010 to 2024, using a multi metric checklist design.

what was measured
What we checked
  • Real income pc
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/mena_lebanon_currency_collapse_real_economy_2019_2024
1007550250201020172024LBN
illustrative sketch · run pending
No coefficients yet. When the model fires, this chart will show real_gdp_pc across 1 sampled countries over 2010–2024.
The shapes above are stylised — none of the lines are real data.
Placeholder for mena_lebanon_currency_collapse_real_economy_2019_2024. Published chart will be generated from engine/runs/mena_lebanon_currency_collapse_real_economy_2019_2024/chart_data.json.

Who has skin in the game — schools predicting on this

2 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.

Marxian Political Economywins if MIXEDpartial/no-callNew Keynesian (mainstream synthesis)wins if MIXEDpartial/no-call

Pre-registration

registration ordering unverified
first-spec commit 4c8ce8e · 2026-07-18T22:11:21Z
run generated · 2026-05-01T08:00:33Z
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.

Lebanon's October-2019-onwards economic collapse (banking-sector freeze, BdL multi-rate regime, lira hyperinflation, GDP contraction, dollarisation reversal) produced one of the largest real-economy contractions of the 21st century, with World Bank estimating GDP shrinking ~58% peak-to-trough. The pre-registered claim is that, treating Lebanon as a single canonical-case multi-metric instance, at least 5 of 6 pre-registered extreme thresholds are met: (a) cumulative real-GDP-pc decline >40% from 2018 peak, (b) lira cumulative depreciation >95% in unofficial market, (c) CPI inflation >100% YoY at peak, (d) banking-sector total assets in real terms decline >70%, (e) emigration outflow >10% of pre-crisis population, (f) electricity supply hours per day fall below 4. The null counter-claim is that the cumulative effect is large but not at the canonical-extreme thresholds (e.g. emigration figure depends on unverified estimates).

Falsification criterion — what would disprove this

set before the run · honoured after

This hypothesis is considered falsified if:

Evaluate every canonical_metrics row against its pre-registered source, window, and threshold. The hypothesis is SUPPORTED if at least 5 of 6 metrics are MET. It is REFUTED if even counting all pending metrics as favorable cannot reach 5 MET metrics and the confirmed failures cross the pre-registered refutation guardrail. Otherwise the verdict is INCONCLUSIVE until pending data or pending evaluation metrics are resolved.

formal test & threshold
test:      multi_metric_checklist_canonical_case
threshold: MET >= 5 of 6; REFUTE when MET + PENDING_DATA + PENDING_EVAL < 5; refutation guardrail=2

Method

Template
multi_metric_checklist
Clustering
none
Sample
1 countries · 2010 – 2024
Evidence type
canonical_case_multi_metric

Canonical-case checklist evaluator reads canonical_metrics and multi_metric_falsification; no regression model is estimated. Each metric is scored against its pre-registered source, window, and threshold before applying the count rule below.

Data

VariableSourceTransform
real_gdp_pc
outcome
world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.KDtier 2
imf:NGDPRPCtier 2
log_level

● ready  · ● pending  · ● reconstruct-needed

Detailed result card

Result card — mena_lebanon_currency_collapse_real_economy_2019_2024

Verdict: refuted

Reason: 3 metrics failed and 1 pending; cannot reach 5

Pre-registered rule: SUPPORT if >= 5 of 6 metrics met; REFUTE if <= 2 met (impossible to hit support).

Counts: 2 MET · 3 NOT_MET · 1 PENDING_DATA · 0 PENDING_EVAL

Primary country: LBN

Metric-by-metric

| # | Metric | Status | Observed | Threshold | Notes | |---|---|:---:|---:|---|---| | 1 | real_gdp_pc_decline | NOT_MET | 30.4 (2023) [peak_to_trough_pct_decline] | >40% decline | | | 2 | lira_unofficial_depreciation | MET | 1.39e+04 (2023) [max_in_window_fallback] | >95% depreciation | | | 3 | cpi_inflation_peak | MET | 221 (2023) [max_in_window_fallback] | >100% YoY at peak | | | 4 | banking_sector_real_assets | PENDING_DATA | | >70% decline | No LBN observations in loaded vintages | | 5 | emigration_outflow_share | NOT_MET | -1.73e+04 (2024) [max_in_window] | >10% of population | | | 6 | electricity_supply_hours | NOT_MET | 100 (2021) [max_in_window_fallback] | <4 hours per day | |

Claim

Lebanon's October-2019-onwards economic collapse (banking-sector freeze, BdL multi-rate regime, lira hyperinflation, GDP contraction, dollarisation reversal) produced one of the largest real-economy contractions of the 21st century, with World Bank estimating GDP shrinking ~58% peak-to-trough. The pre-registered claim is that, treating Lebanon as a single canonical-case multi-metric instance, at least 5 of 6 pre-registered extreme thresholds are met: (a) cumulative real-GDP-pc decline >40% from 2018 peak, (b) lira cumulative depreciation >95% in unofficial market, (c) CPI inflation >100% YoY at peak, (d) banking-sector total assets in real terms decline >70%, (e) emigration outflow >10% of pre-crisis population, (f) electricity supply hours per day fall below 4. The null counter-claim is that the cumulative effect is large but not at the canonical-extreme thresholds (e.g. emigration figure depends on unverified estimates).

Interpretation

The canonical-case pattern match is not satisfied: only 2 of 6 metrics met their thresholds, below the support threshold of 5. Note that for canonical-case hypotheses, a refutation can indicate either that the hypothesis is genuinely weak, that the metric set is mis-calibrated (too strict), or that the data substrate has systematic gaps. Review the PENDING_DATA / PENDING_EVAL metrics before accepting the refutation.

Steelman live concerns

See hypotheses/steelman/mena_lebanon_currency_collapse_real_economy_2019_2024.md for the strongest opposing arguments. Canonical-case multi-metric evidence is a pattern match, not a causal identification — the result card should be read as 'outcome trajectory matches the predicted pattern to degree X' rather than 'policy P caused the outcome'.

Provenance

Vintages pinned in manifest.yaml. Full per-metric diagnostics in diagnostics.json. Machine-readable results in metric_results.parquet.

Strongest opposing argument

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

Notes

Designed as multi-metric canonical-case rather than synthetic control because no comparable peer can match Lebanon's pre-2019 banking-anchored fixed-rate macro regime. The 5-of-6 threshold permits one metric to fall short while still classifying as supported.

Authored framework. Read the transparency note.