IESET.
Hypotheses·regulatory·ordo_competition_law_enforcement_growth_premium_oecd

Across OECD economies 1998-2022, jurisdictions with stricter rule-bound competition-law enforcement (proxied by OECD Product Market Regulation state-control / barriers-to-entry sub-indices and EFW area-5 regulation scores) exhibit higher subsequent multifactor and labour productivity growth than jurisdictions with weaker enforcement, conditional on initial income, openness, and rule-of-law level.

The Eucken "Wettbewerbsordnung" prediction is that rule-bound competition policy raises long-run productivity by preventing entrenchment of incumbent rents, and the effect is identifiable in cross-country PMR variation even after stripping common rule-of-law variation.

INCONCLUSIVEengine/runs/ordo_competition_law_enforcement_growth_premium_oecd

INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — treatment 'oecd_pmr_overall' has no within-country variation under country fixed effects

confidence cueResult card produced; verdict unclassified.

policy briefCoverage too thin

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

This test cannot make a firm call yet. treatment 'oecd_pmr_overall' has no within-country variation under country fixed effects

why it matters

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

how the test works

It compares 36 country or place units from 1998 to 2022, using a panel fe design, with fixed effects for country and year.

what was measured
What changed
  • Rich-country pmr overall
  • Efw regulation area5
What we checked
  • Labour productivity growth 5yr forward
  • Productivity growth pwt
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/ordo_competition_law_enforcement_growth_premium_oecd
1007550250199820102022AUSAUTBELCANCHECHLCZE
illustrative sketch · run pending
No coefficients yet. When the model fires, this chart will show labour_productivity_growth_5yr_forward across 36 sampled countries over 1998–2022.
The shapes above are stylised — none of the lines are real data.
Placeholder for ordo_competition_law_enforcement_growth_premium_oecd. Published chart will be generated from engine/runs/ordo_competition_law_enforcement_growth_premium_oecd/chart_data.json.

Pre-registration

registration ordering unverified
first-spec commit 4c8ce8e · 2026-07-18T22:11:21Z
run generated · 2026-06-29T17:54:33Z
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.

Across OECD economies 1998-2022, jurisdictions with stricter rule-bound competition-law enforcement (proxied by OECD Product Market Regulation state-control / barriers-to-entry sub-indices and EFW area-5 regulation scores) exhibit higher subsequent multifactor and labour productivity growth than jurisdictions with weaker enforcement, conditional on initial income, openness, and rule-of-law level. The Eucken "Wettbewerbsordnung" prediction is that rule-bound competition policy raises long-run productivity by preventing entrenchment of incumbent rents, and the effect is identifiable in cross-country PMR variation even after stripping common rule-of-law variation.

Falsification criterion — what would disprove this

set before the run · honoured after

This hypothesis is considered falsified if:

SUPPORTED if both (a) the panel-FE coefficient on lower PMR (i.e. stronger competition policy) is positive on 5-year-forward labour-productivity growth at p<0.05, AND (b) the coefficient survives inclusion of WGI Rule of Law as a co-regressor with at least 50% of the bivariate magnitude retained. REFUTED if the PMR coefficient is wrong-signed at p<0.05 or collapses to <20% of the bivariate magnitude when RL is added (suggests competition rule is a proxy for generalised institutional quality). INFORMATIVE: EFW area-5 regression replicates direction.

formal test & threshold
test:      oecd_pmr_panel_fe_productivity_with_rl_attenuation
threshold: PRIMARY: panel_FE_beta(PMR_inverted) > 0 at p<0.05 AND coefficient retained at >=50% when wgi:RL.EST included. INFORMATIVE: fraser_efw:area_5 coefficient same sign at p<0.10.

Method

Template
panel_fe
Fixed effects
country, year
Clustering
country
Sample
36 countries · 1998 – 2022
Evidence type
associational

Two-way fixed-effects panel with standard errors clustered by country. Identification from within-country PMR variation across OECD vintages (1998, 2003, 2008, 2013, 2018). Robustness: drop rule-of-law control and observe coefficient stability — Eucken's claim is that competition-rule enforcement is a distinct channel from generalised RL.

Data

VariableSourceTransform
labour_productivity_growth_5yr_forward
outcome
world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.KDtier 2
cumulative_log_growth_5yr_forward
tfp_growth_pwt
outcome
pwt:rtfpnatier 3
log_diff_5yr_forward
oecd_pmr_overall
treatment
oecd_pmr:overalltier 4
level
efw_regulation_area5
treatment
fraser_efw:area_5_regulationtier 4
level
initial_log_gdp_pc
control
world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.KDtier 2
log_level_at_block_start
trade_openness
control
world_bank_wdi:NE.TRD.GNFS.ZStier 2
level
wgi_rule_of_law
control
wgi:RL.ESTtier 4
level
investment_share
control
world_bank_wdi:NE.GDI.TOTL.ZStier 2
level

● ready  · ● pending  · ● reconstruct-needed

Detailed result card

Result card — ordo_competition_law_enforcement_growth_premium_oecd

Verdict: INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — treatment 'oecd_pmr_overall' has no within-country variation under country fixed effects

Pre-registration

  • Claim: Across OECD economies 1998-2022, jurisdictions with stricter rule-bound competition-law enforcement (proxied by OECD Product Market Regulation state-control / barriers-to-entry sub-indices and EFW area-5 regulation scores) exhibit higher subsequent multifactor and labour productivity growth than jurisdictions with weaker enforcement, conditional on initial income, openness, and rule-of-law level. The Eucken "Wettbewerbsordnung" prediction is that rule-bound competition policy raises long-run productivity by preventing entrenchment of incumbent rents, and the effect is identifiable in cross-country PMR variation even after stripping common rule-of-law variation.
  • Falsification rule: SUPPORTED if both (a) the panel-FE coefficient on lower PMR (i.e. stronger competition policy) is positive on 5-year-forward labour-productivity growth at p<0.05, AND (b) the coefficient survives inclusion of WGI Rule of Law as a co-regressor with at least 50% of the bivariate magnitude retained. REFUTED if the PMR coefficient is wrong-signed at p<0.05 or collapses to <20% of the bivariate magnitude when RL is added (suggests competition rule is a proxy for generalised institutional quality). INFORMATIVE: EFW area-5 regression replicates direction.
  • Falsification test: oecd_pmr_panel_fe_productivity_with_rl_attenuation

Estimate

  • Error: treatment 'oecd_pmr_overall' has no within-country variation under country fixed effects

Variables resolved

  • world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.KD → labour_productivity_growth_5yr_forward (outcome, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=12104)
  • pwt:rtfpna → tfp_growth_pwt (outcome, publisher=pwt, n=6407)
  • oecd_pmr:overall → oecd_pmr_overall (treatment, publisher=oecd_pmr, n=105)
  • fraser_efw:area_5_regulation → efw_regulation_area5 (treatment, publisher=fraser_efw, n=4718)
  • world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.KD → initial_log_gdp_pc (controls, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=12104)
  • world_bank_wdi:NE.TRD.GNFS.ZS → trade_openness (controls, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=10714)
  • wgi:RL.EST → wgi_rule_of_law (controls, publisher=wgi, n=5296)
  • world_bank_wdi:NE.GDI.TOTL.ZS → investment_share (controls, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=10428)

Generated by scripts/run_panel_fe.py at 2026-06-29T17:54:33+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

Eucken's 1952 "Grundsätze der Wirtschaftspolitik" specified the Wettbewerbsordnung — a constitutionally rule-bound competition order — as the backbone of a productive market economy. PMR and EFW area-5 are the closest registered proxies. Spec explicitly tests whether the productivity signal is identified off competition-rule enforcement specifically, separate from generalised rule-of-law variation, by gating on RL-attenuation. v2 would substitute a direct DG-COMP merger-block-intensity series if a publisher registers it.

Authored framework. Read the transparency note.