IESET.
Hypotheses·distribution·r_minus_g_wealth_income_ratio_post_1980

Piketty's r > g dynamic post-1980 produced wealth-to-income ratios reaching or exceeding pre-1914 levels in major OECD economies, consistent with social-democratic claims about structural inequality drift absent policy intervention.

INCONCLUSIVEengine/runs/r_minus_g_wealth_income_ratio_post_1980

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

why it matters

Distributional claims often sound morally clear but are empirically complex. This test asks whether the proposed channel explains real differences across places.

how the test works

It compares 18 country or place units from 1980 to 2020, using a panel fe design, with fixed effects for country and year.

what was measured
What changed
  • Realised r minus g gap
  • Real income per capita growth
What we checked
  • Wealth to national income ratio
  • Top 1 wealth share
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/r_minus_g_wealth_income_ratio_post_1980
1007550250198020002020USAGBRFRADEUITAESPNLD
illustrative sketch · run pending
No coefficients yet. When the model fires, this chart will show wealth_to_national_income_ratio across 18 sampled countries over 1980–2020.
The shapes above are stylised — none of the lines are real data.
Placeholder for r_minus_g_wealth_income_ratio_post_1980. Published chart will be generated from engine/runs/r_minus_g_wealth_income_ratio_post_1980/chart_data.json.

Who has skin in the game — schools predicting on this

10 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.

Degrowth / Ecological Macroeconomicswins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callDemocratic Socialism (Bernsteinian revisionism + modern)wins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callEco-Socialism / Red-Greenwins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callMarket Socialism (Lange-Lerner tradition)wins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callMarxian Political Economywins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callMarxism-Leninism (central-planning implementation)wins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callModern Monetary Theorywins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callNew Keynesian (mainstream synthesis)wins if MIXEDpartial/no-callPost-Keynesianwins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callSocial Democraticwins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-call

Pre-registration

registration ordering unverified
first-spec commit 4c8ce8e · 2026-07-18T22:11:21Z
run generated · 2026-06-29T17:51:13Z
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.

Piketty's r > g dynamic post-1980 produced wealth-to-income ratios reaching or exceeding pre-1914 levels in major OECD economies, consistent with social-democratic claims about structural inequality drift absent policy intervention.

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:      OECD panel FE (1980-2023, WID data) regressing wealth-to-income ratio on realised r-g gap; country+year FE, country-clustered SEs. Refute if W/Y in USA/GBR/FRA/DEU fails to reach 1910 pre-WWI levels OR coefficient on r-g sign-flipped at p<0.10.

Method

Template
panel_fe
Fixed effects
country, year
Clustering
country
Sample
18 countries · 1980 – 2020
Evidence type
associational

Cross-country OECD panel (WID series) regressing wealth-to-income ratio on the realised r-g gap with country and year FE. Sample 1980-2020; clustering by country.

Data

VariableSourceTransform
wealth_to_national_income_ratio
outcome
wid:wid_alltier 3
level
top_1_wealth_share
outcome
wid:wid_alltier 3
level
realised_r_minus_g_gap
treatment
derived:wid_r_minus_gtier 4
level
real_gdp_per_capita_growth
treatment
world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.KD.ZGtier 2
level
top_marginal_income_tax_rate
treatment
owid:top-marginal-income-tax-ratetier 2
level
gdp_per_capita_ppp
control
world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.KDtier 2
log
log_population
control
world_bank_wdi:SP.POP.TOTLtier 2
log
house_price_to_income
control
bis:WS_SPPtier 2
level

● ready  · ● pending  · ● reconstruct-needed

Detailed result card

Result card — r_minus_g_wealth_income_ratio_post_1980

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

Pre-registration

  • Claim: Piketty's r > g dynamic post-1980 produced wealth-to-income ratios reaching or exceeding pre-1914 levels in major OECD economies, consistent with social-democratic claims about structural inequality drift absent policy intervention.
  • 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.
  • Falsification test: OECD panel FE (1980-2023, WID data) regressing wealth-to-income ratio on realised r-g gap; country+year FE, country-clustered SEs. Refute if W/Y in USA/GBR/FRA/DEU fails to reach 1910 pre-WWI levels OR coefficient on r-g sign-flipped at p<0.10.

Estimate

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

Variables resolved

  • wid:wid_all → wealth_to_national_income_ratio (outcome, publisher=wid, n=9000)
  • wid:wid_all → top_1_wealth_share (outcome, publisher=wid, n=9000)
  • derived:wid_r_minus_g → realised_r_minus_g_gap (treatment, publisher=constructed, n=738)
  • world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.KD.ZG → real_gdp_per_capita_growth (treatment, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=13897)
  • owid:top-marginal-income-tax-rate → top_marginal_income_tax_rate (treatment, publisher=owid, n=590)
  • world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.KD → gdp_per_capita_ppp (controls, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=8325)
  • world_bank_wdi:SP.POP.TOTL → log_population (controls, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=14447)
  • bis:WS_SPP → house_price_to_income (controls, publisher=bis, n=2272)

Generated by scripts/run_panel_fe.py at 2026-06-29T17:51:13+00:00

Notes

Maps the social-democratic school's Piketty-r>g wealth-drift claim to a WID OECD panel. Estimator and prior set; full pre-registration awaits steelman + human sign-off.

Authored framework. Read the transparency note.