IESET.
Hypotheses·labour·new_deal_output_employment_counterfactual

US New Deal 1933-1938 (public-works employment, Social Security, Wagner Act) raised median living standards and reduced unemployment faster than the pre-1933 laissez-faire counterfactual, vindicating democratic reformist economic management.

PARTIALengine/runs/new_deal_output_employment_counterfactual

PARTIAL — mean_gap=+0.3029, |gap|/pre_sd=2.6, p_perm=0.3; 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 new deal treatment indicator is actually linked to better or worse real income per capita from 1925 to 1942.

plain answer

The evidence is suggestive but not decisive. mean_gap=+0.3029, |gap|/pre_sd=2.6, p_perm=0.3; 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 10 country or place units from 1925 to 1942, using a synthetic control design.

what was measured
What changed
  • New deal treatment indicator
What we checked
  • Real income per capita
  • Unemployment rate
  • Industrial production index
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/new_deal_output_employment_counterfactual
1007550250192519341942USACANGBRFRACHEAUSDEU
illustrative sketch · run pending
No coefficients yet. When the model fires, this chart will show real_gdp_per_capita across 10 sampled countries over 1925–1942.
The shapes above are stylised — none of the lines are real data.
Placeholder for new_deal_output_employment_counterfactual. Published chart will be generated from engine/runs/new_deal_output_employment_counterfactual/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.

Democratic Socialism (Bernsteinian revisionism + modern)wins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-call

Pre-registration

registration ordering unverified
first-spec commit 4c8ce8e · 2026-07-18T22:11:21Z
run generated · 2026-05-01T08:48:57Z
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.

US New Deal 1933-1938 (public-works employment, Social Security, Wagner Act) raised median living standards and reduced unemployment faster than the pre-1933 laissez-faire counterfactual, vindicating democratic reformist economic management.

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:      Synthetic control on US 1933-1938 employment and real wages with donor pool {CAN, GBR, FRA, CHE, AUS}; supported if cumulative employment gap by 1938 is positive and >5pp above synthetic counterfactual at p<0.10.

Method

Template
synthetic_control
Fixed effects
Clustering
country
Sample
10 countries · 1925 – 1942
Evidence type
associational

Synthetic control on US 1933-1938 New Deal trajectory using cross-country donor pool of non-New-Deal Depression-era peers (CAN, GBR, FRA, CHE, AUS) on output, employment, and real wage series. Counterfactual comparison addresses no-natural-control critique.

Data

VariableSourceTransform
real_gdp_per_capita
outcome
maddison:gdppctier 3
log
unemployment_rate
outcome
jst:unemptier 3
level
industrial_production_index
outcome
jst:indprodtier 3
log
real_wage_index
outcome
jst:realwagetier 3
log
new_deal_treatment_indicator
treatment
derived:new_deal_country_yeartier 4
indicator
gold_standard_indicator
control
ilzetzki_reinhart_rogoff:exchange_rate_arrangementstier 3
indicator
log_population
control
world_bank_wdi:SP.POP.TOTLtier 2
log

● ready  · ● pending  · ● reconstruct-needed

Detailed result card

Result card — new_deal_output_employment_counterfactual

Verdict: PARTIAL — mean_gap=+0.3029, |gap|/pre_sd=2.6, p_perm=0.3; claim direction ambiguous

Pre-registration

  • Claim: US New Deal 1933-1938 (public-works employment, Social Security, Wagner Act) raised median living standards and reduced unemployment faster than the pre-1933 laissez-faire counterfactual, vindicating democratic reformist economic management.
  • 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.

Synthetic-control estimate

  • shape: synth_did
  • treated_country: USA
  • event_year: 1933
  • n_donors: 9
  • donor_weights (top): {'CAN': 0.5417, 'AUS': 0.4018, 'FRA': 0.0565, 'GBR': 0.0, 'CHE': 0.0}
  • pre_rmse: 0.3593305858754196
  • pre_period_sd: 0.11723510070294087
  • mean_post_gap: 0.30289313234284415
  • end_period_gap: 0.30490365280043363
  • post_period_years: [1933, 1942]
  • placebo_p_value: 0.3
  • n_placebos: 9
  • method: synthetic-control via NNLS, permutation inference

Variables resolved

  • maddison:gdppc → real_gdp_per_capita (outcome, n=19706)
  • jst:unemp → unemployment_rate (outcome, n=2718)
  • jst:indprod → industrial_production_index (outcome, n=2718)
  • jst:realwage → real_wage_index (outcome, n=2718)
  • derived:new_deal_country_year → new_deal_treatment_indicator (treatment, n=180)
  • world_bank_wdi:SP.POP.TOTL → log_population (controls, n=16935)

Generated by scripts/run_synth_did.py at 2026-05-01T08:48:57+00:00

Notes

Stub seeded from a democratic-socialist school prediction about New Deal counterfactual. No natural US control; needs human review of cross-country donor-pool comparability for Depression-era trajectories.

Authored framework. Read the transparency note.