IESET.
Hypotheses·institutional quality·resource_rent_capture_outperforms_laissez_faire

Across resource-rich economies with meaningful extractive sectors, countries that capture a high share of resource rents through sovereign-wealth-fund mechanisms, royalties, resource-specific taxes, or state-share equity (the "rent-capture" regime, anchored by Norway and Botswana) deliver better long-run welfare outcomes — GDP per capita PPP, life expectancy, gini disposable income, public-service quality — than comparable resource-rich economies that run a laissez-faire regime where rents are predominantly retained by private extractive firms (anchored by Australia LNG, pre-SWF Alaska oil, pre-reform Chilean copper).

The comparison is conditional on per-capita-resource-endowment and institutional-quality controls, so that the hypothesis does not conflate rent-capture-policy with being small-and-lucky. The quantitative claim is that a 10-percentage- point higher rent-capture share is associated with at least a 5% higher long-run GDP per capita PPP and non-negative effects on the distribution and public-service outcomes, all controlling for the per-capita-resource-endowment variable.

INCONCLUSIVEengine/runs/resource_rent_capture_outperforms_laissez_faire

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

why it matters

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

how the test works

It compares 26 country or place units from 1996 to 2023, using a panel fe design, with fixed effects for country and year.

what was measured
What changed
  • Resource rent capture share
What we checked
  • Log income per capita cost-of-living adjusted
  • Life expectancy at birth
  • Inequality disposable 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/resource_rent_capture_outperforms_laissez_faire
descriptive sketch · model not yet run
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Who has skin in the game — schools predicting on this

17 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.

Austrian Business Cycle Theory (ABCT)wins if REFUTEDpartial/no-callChicago School Monetarismwins if REFUTEDpartial/no-callClassical Liberalwins if REFUTEDpartial/no-callDegrowth / Ecological Macroeconomicswins if MIXEDpartial/no-callDemocratic Socialism (Bernsteinian revisionism + modern)wins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callStructuralist / Developmentalistwins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callEco-Socialism / Red-Greenwins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callEmpirical Pragmatist (the framework's house position)wins if MIXEDpartial/no-callNew Institutional Economicswins 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 MIXEDpartial/no-callModern Monetary Theorywins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callNew Keynesian (mainstream synthesis)wins if MIXEDpartial/no-callOrdoliberalism (Freiburg School)wins if MIXEDpartial/no-callPost-Keynesianwins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callSocial Democraticwins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-call

Pre-registration

pre-registered
first-spec commit bae09ab · 2026-04-29T22:09:42Z
run generated · 2026-06-29T17:53:25Z

Across resource-rich economies with meaningful extractive sectors, countries that capture a high share of resource rents through sovereign-wealth-fund mechanisms, royalties, resource-specific taxes, or state-share equity (the "rent-capture" regime, anchored by Norway and Botswana) deliver better long-run welfare outcomes — GDP per capita PPP, life expectancy, gini disposable income, public-service quality — than comparable resource-rich economies that run a laissez-faire regime where rents are predominantly retained by private extractive firms (anchored by Australia LNG, pre-SWF Alaska oil, pre-reform Chilean copper). The comparison is conditional on per-capita-resource-endowment and institutional-quality controls, so that the hypothesis does not conflate rent-capture-policy with being small-and-lucky. The quantitative claim is that a 10-percentage- point higher rent-capture share is associated with at least a 5% higher long-run GDP per capita PPP and non-negative effects on the distribution and public-service outcomes, all controlling for the per-capita-resource-endowment variable.

Falsification criterion — what would disprove this

set before the run · honoured after

This hypothesis is considered falsified if:

Not supported if (a) the coefficient on rent-capture share is not positive and significant at p < 0.10 on log GDP per capita PPP in the two-way FE panel, after the resource-endowment and institutional- quality controls are included, OR (b) the between-country cross- section coefficient loses significance once per-capita-resource- endowment is controlled, OR (c) laissez-faire-anchor countries (Australia, pre-1976 Alaska, pre-reform Chile) match or exceed the SWF-anchor countries (Norway, Botswana, post-reform Chile) on the anchor-case comparison controlling for per-capita resource endowment. A null or reversed result would indicate that rent-capture-policy's apparent benefits are driven by the institutional environments that produce rent-capture policy, not by the policy itself.

formal test & threshold
test:      rent_capture_share_coefficient_plus_anchor_case_comparison
threshold: β_rent_capture_share (panel FE, log GDP pc PPP) > 0 at p < 0.10  AND cross_section_coefficient > 0 after per-capita-endowment control  AND anchor_case_count_favouring_rent_capture >= 3 of 4 (Norway>Australia, Botswana>Angola, Chile-post>Chile-pre, Alaska-post>Alaska-pre)

Method

Template
panel_fe
Fixed effects
country, year
Clustering
country
Sample
26 countries · 1996 – 2023
Evidence type
associational

Primary specification: two-way FE panel on log GDP per capita PPP with rent-capture share as treatment, resource-rents/GDP and log-resource-rents-per-capita as endowment controls, WGI GE and WGI CC as institutional-quality controls, plus country and year FE. Secondary specification: cross-section on 2010-2019 country averages (pre-COVID) with the same control set, to surface the between- country pattern that the panel FE suppresses. Tertiary: anchor-case comparisons presented as paired trajectories, not a regression — Norway vs Australia (oil-and-gas, sample-matched per-capita endowment to within a factor), Botswana vs Angola (diamonds and oil, low-income Africa), Chile CODELCO-era vs Chile pre-1976 (within-country copper-rent-capture regime change), Alaska Permanent Fund pre-1976 vs post-1976 (within-country oil-rent- capture regime change). Known limitations: (a) The rent-capture share is a constructed variable that requires expert assembly from IMF GFS + national SWF disclosures. The construction rule is pre-registered; disagreements over classification (is X fund a "SWF"? is Y state-equity capture or private-return?) will materially move results and must be handled with a sensitivity spec. (b) Resource-price regime differs materially across the sample — 1970s-era rent-capture designs (Alaska 1976, Norway 1990) face different extraction incentives than 2014+-era designs post- shale-oil-price collapse. A 1976-1990 vs 1991-2013 vs 2014+ sub-period split is pre-registered as a robustness run. (c) Country FE absorb time-invariant institutional quality; the hypothesis's identification comes from within-country regime changes (Chile copper, Alaska oil) + cross-country between variation in the cross-section spec. (d) Evidence type is associational rather than causal; the rent-capture regime is chosen endogenously by institutional environment. The hypothesis does not claim that imposing Norway's SWF design on a Nigerian institutional substrate would produce Norway's outcomes.

Data

VariableSourceTransform
log_gdp_per_capita_ppp
outcome
world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.KDtier 2
log
life_expectancy_at_birth
outcome
world_bank_wdi:SP.DYN.LE00.INtier 2
level
gini_disposable_income
outcome
world_bank_wdi:SI.POV.GINItier 2
level
resource_rent_capture_share
treatment
constructed:(SWF_asset_flows_from_rent + resource_royalty_revenue + resource_specific_tax_revenue + state_equity_dividend_flows) / rtier 5
level
resource_rents_pct_gdp
control
world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.TOTL.RT.ZStier 2
level
log_resource_rents_per_capita
control
constructed:(resource_rents_pct_gdp × GDP_nominal) / populationtier 5
log
wgi_government_effectiveness
control
wgi:GOV_WGI_GE.ESTtier 4
level
wgi_control_of_corruption
control
wgi:GOV_WGI_CC.ESTtier 4
level
trade_openness
control
world_bank_wdi:NE.TRD.GNFS.ZStier 2
level
log_population
control
world_bank_wdi:SP.POP.TOTLtier 2
log

● ready  · ● pending  · ● reconstruct-needed

Detailed result card

Result card — resource_rent_capture_outperforms_laissez_faire

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

Pre-registration

  • Claim: Across resource-rich economies with meaningful extractive sectors, countries that capture a high share of resource rents through sovereign-wealth-fund mechanisms, royalties, resource-specific taxes, or state-share equity (the "rent-capture" regime, anchored by Norway and Botswana) deliver better long-run welfare outcomes — GDP per capita PPP, life expectancy, gini disposable income, public-service quality — than comparable resource-rich economies that run a laissez-faire regime where rents are predominantly retained by private extractive firms (anchored by Australia LNG, pre-SWF Alaska oil, pre-reform Chilean copper). The comparison is conditional on per-capita-resource-endowment and institutional-quality controls, so that the hypothesis does not conflate rent-capture-policy with being small-and-lucky. The quantitative claim is that a 10-percentage- point higher rent-capture share is associated with at least a 5% higher long-run GDP per capita PPP and non-negative effects on the distribution and public-service outcomes, all controlling for the per-capita-resource-endowment variable.
  • Falsification rule: Not supported if (a) the coefficient on rent-capture share is not positive and significant at p < 0.10 on log GDP per capita PPP in the two-way FE panel, after the resource-endowment and institutional- quality controls are included, OR (b) the between-country cross- section coefficient loses significance once per-capita-resource- endowment is controlled, OR (c) laissez-faire-anchor countries (Australia, pre-1976 Alaska, pre-reform Chile) match or exceed the SWF-anchor countries (Norway, Botswana, post-reform Chile) on the anchor-case comparison controlling for per-capita resource endowment. A null or reversed result would indicate that rent-capture-policy's apparent benefits are driven by the institutional environments that produce rent-capture policy, not by the policy itself.
  • Falsification test: rent_capture_share_coefficient_plus_anchor_case_comparison

Estimate

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

Variables resolved

  • world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.KD → log_gdp_per_capita_ppp (outcome, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=8325)
  • world_bank_wdi:SP.DYN.LE00.IN → life_expectancy_at_birth (outcome, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=14443)
  • world_bank_wdi:SI.POV.GINI → gini_disposable_income (outcome, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=2430)
  • constructed: (SWF_asset_flows_from_rent + resource_royalty_revenue + resource_specific_tax_revenue + state_equity_dividend_flows) / resource_export_value. Requires assembly from IMF GFS, national SWF disclosures, and IMF Natural Resources Fiscal Database. → resource_rent_capture_share (treatment, publisher=constructed, n=728)
  • world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.TOTL.RT.ZS → resource_rents_pct_gdp (controls, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=11504)
  • wgi:GOV_WGI_GE.EST → wgi_government_effectiveness (controls, publisher=wgi, n=5168)
  • wgi:GOV_WGI_CC.EST → wgi_control_of_corruption (controls, publisher=wgi, n=5201)
  • world_bank_wdi:NE.TRD.GNFS.ZS → trade_openness (controls, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=10714)
  • world_bank_wdi:SP.POP.TOTL → log_population (controls, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=14447)

Variables missing data

  • constructed: (resource_rents_pct_gdp × GDP_nominal) / population (controls, name=log_resource_rents_per_capita) — vintage not on disk

Generated by scripts/run_panel_fe.py at 2026-06-29T17:53:25+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

This is mega-spec D.1 #5, the Australia LNG vs Norway SWF comparison with broader panel extension. The anchor-case comparisons (Norway vs Australia, Botswana vs Angola, Chile reform within-country, Alaska Permanent Fund within-country) are the most identifying part of the design; the panel regression is context. Data readiness: - WDI NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.KD, SP.DYN.LE00.IN, SI.POV.GINI (ready) - WDI NY.GDP.TOTL.RT.ZS, ADJ.DRES.RT.ZS (ADJ series may need fetch) - WDI NE.TRD.GNFS.ZS, SP.POP.TOTL (ready) - WGI GE.EST, CC.EST (ready) - IMF Natural Resource Fiscal Framework / GFS rent-capture assembly (pending specialist fetcher; v1 data-gated for the primary IV) - National SWF disclosures (Norwegian NBIM, Kuwait KIA, Chile SWF, etc.) — manual assembly with pre-registered coding rules v1 pre-registers the full specification; the primary IV construction is data-gated and runs when the fetcher + coding doc ship.

Authored framework. Read the transparency note.