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Hypotheses·growth·mitterrand_nationalisations_productivity_effect

Mitterrand's 1981–1983 French nationalisations reduced productivity and required the 1983 'tournant de la rigueur' reversal, vindicating the classical-liberal diagnosis that political ownership distorts resource allocation.

REFUTEDengine/runs/mitterrand_nationalisations_productivity_effect

refuted — French TFP was +2.19% ABOVE its 1975-80 pre-trend (net of European-peer controls) during the 1981-83 active-nationalisation window, not below it. The productivity-damage premise is not visible at the country level.

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

policy briefNeeds review

In ordinary language

Over a long period, do more market-oriented institutions translate into higher income or productivity, once the comparison looks beyond a single success story?

plain answer

The data did not support the prediction. French TFP was +2.19% ABOVE its 1975-80 pre-trend (net of European-peer controls) during the 1981-83 active-nationalisation window, not below it.

why it matters

Growth claims can look convincing in single success stories. This test asks whether the pattern survives a broader comparison.

how the test works

It compares 7 country or place units from 1975 to 1995, using a event study design, with fixed effects for firm and year.

what was measured
What changed
  • Mitterrand nationalisation indicator
What we checked
  • Log real income pc
  • Productivity index
  • Gross capital formation pct income
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/mitterrand_nationalisations_productivity_effect
Loading chart…

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.

Classical Liberalwins if SUPPORTEDschool refuted

Pre-registration

pre-registered
first-spec commit bae09ab · 2026-04-29T22:09:42Z

Mitterrand's 1981–1983 French nationalisations reduced productivity and required the 1983 'tournant de la rigueur' reversal, vindicating the classical-liberal diagnosis that political ownership distorts resource allocation.

Falsification criterion — what would disprove this

set before the run · honoured after

This hypothesis is considered falsified if:

PRIMARY (dispositive): the dispositive thresholds for this hypothesis are encoded directly in engine/runs/mitterrand_nationalisations_productivity_effect/replication.py and pinned in methodology_note. The auto-grader's verdict in diagnostics.json corresponds to those dispositive checks, not to the legacy boilerplate. See methodology_note for the exact pre-registered thresholds. Headline: PRIMARY (dispositive):

formal test & threshold
test:      Firm-level event study of TFP and labour productivity around 1981 nationalisations and 1983 reversal, firm and year FE 1975-1995; falsified if treated-firm productivity not declining at h=1,2 post-nationalisation and recovering post-1983 at p<0.10.

Method

Template
event_study
Fixed effects
firm, year
Clustering
firm
Sample
7 countries · 1975 – 1995
Evidence type
associational

French firm-level event study around the 1981 nationalisations and the 1983 'tournant de la rigueur' reversal. Outcome: TFP and labour productivity in nationalised vs comparison firms (industry-matched). Tests whether productivity contracted under state ownership and recovered after reversal.

Data

VariableSourceTransform
log_real_gdp_pc
outcome
world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.KDtier 2
log
tfp_index
outcome
pwt:rtfpnatier 3
level
gross_capital_formation_pct_gdp
outcome
world_bank_wdi:NE.GDI.TOTL.ZStier 2
level
manufacturing_value_added_pct_gdp
outcome
world_bank_wdi:NV.IND.MANF.ZStier 2
level
mitterrand_nationalisation_indicator
treatment
constructed:indicator = 1 for FRA years 1981-1983 (nationalisations active before tournant)tier 5
indicator
trade_openness
control
world_bank_wdi:NE.TRD.GNFS.ZStier 2
level
log_population
control
world_bank_wdi:SP.POP.TOTLtier 2
log
cpi_inflation
control
world_bank_wdi:FP.CPI.TOTL.ZGtier 2
level

● ready  · ● pending  · ● reconstruct-needed

Detailed result card

Mitterrand nationalisations and French productivity

Verdict: refuted — French TFP was +2.19% ABOVE its 1975-80 pre-trend (net of European-peer controls) during the 1981-83 active-nationalisation window, not below it. The productivity-damage premise is not visible at the country level.

Summary

Country-level event study of French TFP around the 1981-1983 nationalisations and the 1983 'tournant de la rigueur' reversal, benchmarked against European-peer controls (DEU, GBR, ITA, NLD, BEL, ESP). PWT 'rtfpna' (real TFP at constant national prices) is the primary outcome. Pre-trend window 1975-1980; treatment window 1981-1983; recovery window 1984-1990.

Headline numbers

  • FRA 1975-80 pre-trend slope (log-TFP per year): +1.374%/yr over n=6 pre-period years.
  • FRA 1981-83 mean log-TFP gap vs its own pre-trend: -0.668%.
  • European-peer mean 1981-83 gap (n=6 controls): -2.863%.
  • Net 1981-83 dip (FRA − controls): +2.195% (threshold ≤ -1.50%; FAIL).
  • FRA 1984-90 mean log-TFP gap vs its own pre-trend: -1.541%.
  • European-peer mean 1984-90 gap: -4.605%.
  • Net 1984-90 gap (FRA − controls): +3.065%.
  • Recovery delta (net 1984-90 − net 1981-83): +0.870pp (threshold ≥ +0.75pp; PASS).

Threshold table

| Component | Threshold | Realised | Pass | |---|---:|---:|:---:| | PRIMARY 1: net 1981-83 dip | ≤ -1.50% | +2.195% | no | | PRIMARY 2: net recovery delta | ≥ +0.75pp | +0.870pp | YES |

Per-country control results

| Country | n_pre | pre-slope (%/yr) | gap 1981-83 (%) | gap 1984-90 (%) | |---|---:|---:|---:|---:| | FRA (treated) | 6 | +1.374 | -0.668 | -1.541 | | DEU (control) | 6 | +1.445 | -4.121 | -4.880 | | GBR (control) | 6 | +0.972 | +0.232 | +1.585 | | ITA (control) | 6 | +1.478 | -7.479 | -13.339 | | NLD (control) | 6 | +1.155 | -3.866 | -5.065 | | BEL (control) | 6 | +1.294 | -0.929 | -3.827 | | ESP (control) | 6 | +1.610 | -1.013 | -2.105 |

Informative WDI auxiliaries

  • log_real_gdp_pc (world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.KD, log-units): FRA pre-window mean 21647.210; treatment-window 23563.225 (Δ vs pre +0.085); recovery-window 25760.137 (Δ vs pre +0.174).
  • gross_capital_formation_pct_gdp (world_bank_wdi:NE.GDI.TOTL.ZS, level): FRA pre-window mean 25.701; treatment-window 23.351 (Δ vs pre -2.350); recovery-window 22.694 (Δ vs pre -3.006).
  • trade_openness (world_bank_wdi:NE.TRD.GNFS.ZS, level): FRA pre-window mean 41.850; treatment-window 47.158 (Δ vs pre +5.308); recovery-window 45.233 (Δ vs pre +3.383).

Method

For each country in {FRA} ∪ {DEU, GBR, ITA, NLD, BEL, ESP}: take log(rtfpna), fit OLS linear pre-trend over 1975-1980, project forward, compute mean (actual − projected) over the treatment (1981-83) and recovery (1984-90) windows. The PRIMARY estimand is the FRA gap minus the simple mean of available control gaps in the same window — i.e. how much FRA over- or under-performed its own pre-trend net of any generic European productivity slowdown. A 1.5%-of-TFP under-trend dip plus a half-closure recovery is required for SUPPORTED.

Caveats

  • Country-level not firm-level. The original spec requested a firm-level event study with firm + year FE comparing the 16 nationalised firms (Saint-Gobain, Thomson, Pechiney, Rhône-Poulenc, etc.) against industry-matched private comparators. No such firm-level French panel is in the repo. The country-level outcome blends nationalised-firm productivity with the rest of the French economy, attenuating the treatment effect. A SUPPORTED verdict here is consistent with — but weaker evidence than — the firm-level claim would give; a REFUTED verdict here is also weaker than firm-level would be.
  • Confounds. 1981-1983 also saw the second oil-shock tail, three Franc devaluations, EMS exit-and-stay-in pressure, and a fiscal expansion. The control-net design absorbs Europe-common shocks but not FRA-specific simultaneous shocks. The 1983 tournant itself bundled disinflation + fiscal consolidation alongside the nationalisation reversal logic, so the recovery primary is also FRA-policy-bundle, not nationalisation-reversal-isolated.
  • Pre-trend length. Only 6 pre-period years (1975-1980). The estimated pre-slope is therefore noisy; v2 should add a 1965-1980 specification as robustness if PWT coverage extends.
  • Disclosure (per spec). Authorial bias risk: the classical-liberal framing wants nationalisation to damage productivity. The thresholds were pinned without seeing the result.

Data

  • pwt:rtfpna — data/vintages/pwt/rtfpna@2026-04-27T090915Z.parquet
  • world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.KD — data/vintages/world_bank_wdi/NY.GDP.PCAP.KD@2026-04-27T090917Z.parquet
  • world_bank_wdi:NE.GDI.TOTL.ZS — data/vintages/world_bank_wdi/NE.GDI.TOTL.ZS@2026-04-26T164521Z.parquet
  • world_bank_wdi:NE.TRD.GNFS.ZS — data/vintages/world_bank_wdi/NE.TRD.GNFS.ZS@2026-04-27T093427Z.parquet

Steelman

See hypotheses/steelman/mitterrand_nationalisations_productivity_effect.md.

Notes

Seeded from a classical-liberal claim that Mitterrand's 1981-1983 nationalisations reduced productivity and required the 1983 'tournant de la rigueur' reversal. Firm-level event study around the nationalisation and reversal; human review needed for the comparison-firm matching.

Authored framework. Read the transparency note.