IESET.
Hypotheses·housing·restrictive_zoning_housing_supply_elasticity

UK Town and Country Planning Act 1947 and subsequent restrictive-zoning regimes produce measurable housing supply elasticity reductions and price level increases relative to more-permissive planning systems.

INCONCLUSIVEengine/runs/restrictive_zoning_housing_supply_elasticity

INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — no outcome variable loaded; missing: ['oecd:OECD.SDD.PIN,DSD_RHPI@DF_RHPI,1.0', 'derived:saiz_elasticity', 'ons:dwellings_completed']

confidence cueResult card produced; verdict unclassified.

policy briefCoverage too thin

In ordinary language

Does the housing rule being tested make homes easier to build, rent, or afford, or does it quietly reduce supply and push costs elsewhere?

plain answer

This test cannot make a firm call yet. no outcome variable loaded; missing: ['oecd:OECD.SDD.PIN,DSD_RHPI@DF_RHPI,1.0', 'derived:saiz_elasticity', 'ons:dwellings_completed']

why it matters

Housing policy affects rents, mobility, household budgets, and construction. The test looks for measurable effects rather than relying on slogans.

how the test works

It compares 1 country or place units from 1947 to 2023, using a panel fe design, with fixed effects for region and year.

what was measured
What changed
  • Post 1947 planning act indicator
  • Planning restrictiveness index
What we checked
  • Real house price index
  • Housing supply elasticity
  • Dwelling completions per capita
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/restrictive_zoning_housing_supply_elasticity
1007550250194719852023GBR
illustrative sketch · run pending
No coefficients yet. When the model fires, this chart will show real_house_price_index across 1 sampled countries over 1947–2023.
The shapes above are stylised — none of the lines are real data.
Placeholder for restrictive_zoning_housing_supply_elasticity. Published chart will be generated from engine/runs/restrictive_zoning_housing_supply_elasticity/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.

Classical Liberalwins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-call

Pre-registration

pre-registered
first-spec commit bae09ab · 2026-04-29T22:09:42Z
run generated · 2026-06-29T17:53:15Z

UK Town and Country Planning Act 1947 and subsequent restrictive-zoning regimes produce measurable housing supply elasticity reductions and price level increases relative to more-permissive planning systems.

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:      UK regional/sub-national panel regression of housing-supply elasticity (Saiz-style) and real house prices on planning-restrictiveness index 1947-2023; supported if elasticity coefficient negative at p<0.10 and UK long-run real house-price growth exceeds permissive-comparator group by >50%.

Method

Template
panel_fe
Fixed effects
region, year
Clustering
region
Sample
1 countries · 1947 – 2023
Evidence type
associational

UK regional/local-authority panel-FE 1948-2023 of real house prices and estimated supply elasticity on planning-restrictiveness index, with region and year FE; region-clustered SEs. Comparator group = US permissive-zoning MSAs + continental-European planning systems. Long-run identification is contested — demand-side (mortgage credit, monetary policy) and resource (land-availability) confounds are partials in the control set, but residual confounding is a flagged caveat.

Data

VariableSourceTransform
real_house_price_index
outcome
oecd:OECD.SDD.PINtier 2
log
housing_supply_elasticity
outcome
derived:saiz_elasticitytier 4
level
dwelling_completions_per_capita
outcome
ons:dwellings_completedtier 1
log
post_1947_planning_act_indicator
treatment
constructed:indicator = 1 for years >= 1948 (Town and Country Planning Act enactment); 0 for pre-1948.tier 5
indicator
planning_restrictiveness_index
treatment
derived:uk_planning_restrictivenesstier 4
level
log_gdp_per_capita
control
world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.KDtier 2
log
real_mortgage_rate
control
boe:IUDBEDRtier 1
level
log_population
control
world_bank_wdi:SP.POP.TOTLtier 2
log

● ready  · ● pending  · ● reconstruct-needed

Detailed result card

Result card — restrictive_zoning_housing_supply_elasticity

Verdict: INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — no outcome variable loaded; missing: ['oecd:OECD.SDD.PIN,DSD_RHPI@DF_RHPI,1.0', 'derived:saiz_elasticity', 'ons:dwellings_completed']

Pre-registration

  • Claim: UK Town and Country Planning Act 1947 and subsequent restrictive-zoning regimes produce measurable housing supply elasticity reductions and price level increases relative to more-permissive planning systems.
  • 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: UK regional/sub-national panel regression of housing-supply elasticity (Saiz-style) and real house prices on planning-restrictiveness index 1947-2023; supported if elasticity coefficient negative at p<0.10 and UK long-run real house-price growth exceeds permissive-comparator group by >50%.

Estimate

  • Error: no outcome variable loaded; missing: ['oecd:OECD.SDD.PIN,DSD_RHPI@DF_RHPI,1.0', 'derived:saiz_elasticity', 'ons:dwellings_completed']

Variables resolved

  • constructed: indicator = 1 for years >= 1948 (Town and Country Planning Act enactment); 0 for pre-1948. → post_1947_planning_act_indicator (treatment, publisher=constructed, n=77)
  • world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.KD → log_gdp_per_capita (controls, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=12104)
  • boe:IUDBEDR → real_mortgage_rate (controls, publisher=boe, n=52)
  • world_bank_wdi:SP.POP.TOTL → log_population (controls, publisher=world_bank_wdi, n=14447)

Variables missing data

  • oecd:OECD.SDD.PIN,DSD_RHPI@DF_RHPI,1.0 (outcome, name=real_house_price_index) — vintage not on disk
  • derived:saiz_elasticity (outcome, name=housing_supply_elasticity) — vintage not on disk
  • ons:dwellings_completed (outcome, name=dwelling_completions_per_capita) — vintage not on disk
  • derived:uk_planning_restrictiveness (treatment, name=planning_restrictiveness_index) — vintage not on disk

Generated by scripts/run_panel_fe.py at 2026-06-29T17:53:15+00:00

Notes

Stub seeded from a classical-liberal school prediction about UK 1947 Town and Country Planning Act reducing housing-supply elasticity. Long-run identification is contested; needs human review of comparator selection (US vs continental Europe).

Authored framework. Read the transparency note.