Pre-registration
UK Cameron-Osborne austerity 2010-2016 reduced output below the counterfactual path and failed to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio on the government's own timeline.
Falsification criterion — what would disprove this
This hypothesis is considered falsified if:
PRIMARY (dispositive): the dispositive thresholds for this hypothesis are encoded directly in engine/runs/uk_cameron_osborne_austerity_output_effect/replication.py and pinned in methodology_note. The auto-grader's verdict in diagnostics.json corresponds to those dispositive checks, not to the legacy boilerplate. See methodology_note for the exact pre-registered thresholds. Headline: PRIMARY (dispositive): cumulative log GDP-per-capita gap UK − donor-pool
formal test & threshold
test: Synth-DiD on UK real GDP per capita 2010-2016 with donor pool {USA, FRA, JPN, AUS, CAN}; supported if cumulative output gap < -2% by 2014 and debt-to-GDP ratio at 2015 exceeds 2010 government target by >5pp at p<0.10.Method
- Template
synth_did- Clustering
none- Sample
- 1 countries · 2010 – 2016
- Evidence type
- associational
UK treated 2010-2016; donor pool of advanced economies with comparable pre-2010 fiscal positions but no Cameron-Osborne-style consolidation (USA, FRA, JPN, AUS, CAN). Outcomes: real GDP per capita and debt-to- GDP. Tests whether output fell below the synthetic counterfactual and whether the debt-to-GDP target was met on schedule.
Data
| Variable | Source | Transform |
|---|---|---|
real_gdp_per_capita outcome | world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.KDtier 2 | — |
debt_to_gdp_ratio outcome | imf:GGXWDG_NGDPtier 2 | — |
● ready · ● pending · ● reconstruct-needed
Detailed result card
UK Cameron-Osborne austerity 2010-16: output and debt path
Verdict: partial — debt-target check passes (87.3% vs target 67.0%, overshoot +20.3pp) but UK output gap to donor mean = -0.0083 log-pts > -0.02 — output did not fall below counterfactual by the threshold.
Method
Two-leg dispositive primary: (1) UK − donor-pool-mean log GDP-pc growth gap 2009→2014 <= -0.02 log-pts AND (2) 2015 general-government debt to GDP exceeds 2010 government target (67.0%) by > 5.0pp. Both must hold for SUPPORTED. Donor pool: USA, FRA, JPN, AUS, CAN. Synth-control weighting included as a robustness check on the equal-weighted donor mean.
Numbers
- UK log GDP-pc growth 2009→2014: +0.0572
- Donor mean log growth: +0.0655 → UK gap -0.0083
- Synth-control log growth: +0.0794 → UK gap -0.0222
- SC donor weights: {'USA': 0.119, 'FRA': 0.026, 'JPN': 0.746, 'AUS': 0.017, 'CAN': 0.091}
- 2015 UK debt/GDP: 87.3; overshoot vs 2010 target 20.299999999999997
Caveats
- FRA + JPN had their own fiscal consolidations later in the window — biases the test toward not finding an austerity effect (conservative for the hypothesis).
- Debt-target value 67% is the OBR June-2010 trajectory midpoint for PSND/GDP at FY 2014/15; IMF GGXWDG is a slightly broader measure (general gov gross debt) and runs a few pp higher than PSND.
- Synth-control weights are random-search Dirichlet over a 5-donor simplex with pre-window 2007-2009 — short pre-window weakens identification.
Notes
Stub seeded from a Post-Keynesian school prediction about UK 2010-2016 austerity. Needs human review to confirm donor-pool definition and counterfactual debt-trajectory specification before promotion.