Pre-registration
Stronger rule of law and property rights predict lower child mortality over long windows.
Falsification criterion — what would disprove this
This hypothesis is considered falsified if:
SUPPORTED if the treatment coefficient has the predicted sign at p<0.10. REFUTED if the opposite sign is significant at p<0.10. Otherwise PARTIAL.
formal test & threshold
test: panel_fe_property_rights_child_mortality_decline threshold: p<0.10 with pre-registered sign
Method
- Template
panel_fe- Fixed effects
country, year- Clustering
country- Sample
- 40 countries · 1996 – 2023
- Evidence type
- associational
Local-data first-pass TWFE screen; upgrade to exact outcome/treatment datasets before scoreboard promotion.
Data
| Variable | Source | Transform |
|---|---|---|
qol_or_prosperity_outcome outcome | world_bank_wdi:SH.DYN.MORTtier 2 | level_or_growth_proxy |
market_or_intervention_proxy treatment | wgi:RL.ESTtier 4 | level |
log_gdp_pc control | world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.KDtier 2 | log |
rule_of_law control | wgi:RL.ESTtier 4 | level |
● ready · ● pending · ● reconstruct-needed
Detailed result card
Result card — property_rights_child_mortality_decline
Verdict: PARTIAL — coef=+0.1057, p=0.969 (above α=0.1); direction inconclusive
Pre-registration
- Claim: Stronger rule of law and property rights predict lower child mortality over long windows.
- Falsification rule: SUPPORTED if the treatment coefficient has the predicted sign at p<0.10. REFUTED if the opposite sign is significant at p<0.10. Otherwise PARTIAL.
- Falsification test: panel_fe_property_rights_child_mortality_decline
Estimate
- Method: statsmodels OLS FE fallback (linearmodels failed: exog does not have full column rank. If you wish to proceed with model estimation irrespective of the numerical accuracy of coefficient estimates, you can set check_rank=False.)
- Coefficient (treatment): +0.1057
- Std error: 2.734
- p-value: 0.969
- Observations: 800, countries: 32
- Within R²: 0.946
- Fixed effects: entity=True, time=True
- Clustering: country
Variables resolved
world_bank_wdi:SH.DYN.MORT→ qol_or_prosperity_outcome (outcome, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=11166)wgi:RL.EST→ market_or_intervention_proxy (treatment, publisher=wgi, n=5296)world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.KD→ log_gdp_pc (controls, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=12104)wgi:RL.EST→ rule_of_law (controls, publisher=wgi, n=5296)
Generated by scripts/run_panel_fe.py at 2026-06-29T17:53:11+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.