IESET.
Hypotheses·fiscal·wealth_tax_capital_flight_revenue_yield_gap

Wealth taxes produce a three-order causal chain.

FIRST-ORDER: a new tax instrument is legislated and administered, generating measurable initial revenue — this is a genuine policy success on its own terms and we acknowledge the tax does collect money from wealthy residents in the first year. SECOND-ORDER: wealth-holder migration accelerates (France ISF 2012 outflows, Norway 2022 emigration spike, Colombia 2022-2023 outflow), along with portfolio reshuffling toward exempt or undervalued assets, under-reporting, and family-office restructuring. THIRD-ORDER: realised revenue trajectory falls systematically below legislator forecasts, pressure mounts on the remaining (less-mobile) tax base, and the distributional burden shifts toward non-emigrating upper-middle-class holders of illiquid wealth. Cases: France ISF/IFI 1982-2017 + 2018 reform, Norway 2022 wealth-tax hike, Colombia impuesto al patrimonio 2022, Spain impuesto a las grandes fortunas 2022.

INCONCLUSIVEengine/runs/wealth_tax_capital_flight_revenue_yield_gap

INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — FRA not in panel

confidence cueResult card produced; verdict unclassified.

policy briefCoverage too thin

In ordinary language

In plain terms, this asks whether wealth tax introduction or hike event is actually linked to better or worse wealth tax revenue realised to forecast from 1990 to 2024.

plain answer

This test cannot make a firm call yet. FRA not in panel

why it matters

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

how the test works

It compares 4 country or place units from 1990 to 2024, using a synth did design, with fixed effects for country and year.

what was measured
What changed
  • Wealth tax introduction or hike event
What we checked
  • Wealth tax revenue realised to forecast
  • Wealth tax revenue level
  • High net worth emigration count
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

0 input datasets, 0 unresolved missing series, provenance status: no input vintages recorded.

Results

engine/runs/wealth_tax_capital_flight_revenue_yield_gap
1007550250199020072024FRANORCOLESP
illustrative sketch · run pending
No coefficients yet. When the model fires, this chart will show wealth_tax_revenue_realised_to_forecast across 4 sampled countries over 1990–2024.
The shapes above are stylised — none of the lines are real data.
Placeholder for wealth_tax_capital_flight_revenue_yield_gap. Published chart will be generated from engine/runs/wealth_tax_capital_flight_revenue_yield_gap/chart_data.json.

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 SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callChicago School Monetarismwins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callClassical Liberalwins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callDegrowth / Ecological Macroeconomicswins if REFUTEDpartial/no-callDemocratic Socialism (Bernsteinian revisionism + modern)wins if REFUTEDpartial/no-callStructuralist / Developmentalistwins if MIXEDpartial/no-callEco-Socialism / Red-Greenwins if REFUTEDpartial/no-callEmpirical Pragmatist (the framework's house position)wins if MIXEDpartial/no-callNew Institutional Economicswins if MIXEDpartial/no-callMarket Socialism (Lange-Lerner tradition)wins if REFUTEDpartial/no-callMarxian Political Economywins if REFUTEDpartial/no-callMarxism-Leninism (central-planning implementation)wins if REFUTEDpartial/no-callModern Monetary Theorywins if REFUTEDpartial/no-callNew Keynesian (mainstream synthesis)wins if MIXEDpartial/no-callOrdoliberalism (Freiburg School)wins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-callPost-Keynesianwins if REFUTEDpartial/no-callSocial Democraticwins if REFUTEDpartial/no-call

Pre-registration

registration ordering unverified
first-spec commit 4c8ce8e · 2026-07-18T22:11:21Z
run generated · 2026-05-04T20:29:27Z
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.

Wealth taxes produce a three-order causal chain. FIRST-ORDER: a new tax instrument is legislated and administered, generating measurable initial revenue — this is a genuine policy success on its own terms and we acknowledge the tax does collect money from wealthy residents in the first year. SECOND-ORDER: wealth-holder migration accelerates (France ISF 2012 outflows, Norway 2022 emigration spike, Colombia 2022-2023 outflow), along with portfolio reshuffling toward exempt or undervalued assets, under-reporting, and family-office restructuring. THIRD-ORDER: realised revenue trajectory falls systematically below legislator forecasts, pressure mounts on the remaining (less-mobile) tax base, and the distributional burden shifts toward non-emigrating upper-middle-class holders of illiquid wealth. Cases: France ISF/IFI 1982-2017 + 2018 reform, Norway 2022 wealth-tax hike, Colombia impuesto al patrimonio 2022, Spain impuesto a las grandes fortunas 2022.

Falsification criterion — what would disprove this

set before the run · honoured after

This hypothesis is considered falsified if:

Not supported if, across the four cases: (a) FIRST-ORDER revenue is collected at p<0.05 (acknowledged success) AND (b) forecast- to-realised revenue ratio remains >=0.85 in at least 3/4 cases through year-3 post-introduction AND (c) no statistically detectable emigration response (HNW emigration flow not >1.5x synthetic-control counterfactual at p<0.10) in at least 3/4 cases. A first-order revenue success WITHOUT a yield gap and WITHOUT measurable emigration response would refute the causal chain.

formal test & threshold
test:      synth_did_four_case_causal_chain
threshold: FIRST-ORDER revenue supported AND yield gap >=15% below forecast in at least 3/4 cases AND HNW emigration >=1.5x counterfactual in at least 2/4 cases at p<0.10

Method

Template
synth_did
Fixed effects
country, year
Clustering
country
Sample
4 countries · 1990 – 2024
Evidence type
causal

Synthetic DiD across the four treated events with donor pool of European + LatAm peer countries without wealth-tax events in the same window. Robustness: Landais-Piketty-Saez bunching-style estimator of wealth-holder response elasticity on FRA ISF data; event-study on NOR 2022 with SSB emigration microdata.

Data

VariableSourceTransform
wealth_tax_revenue_realised_to_forecast
outcome
minefi:recettes_fiscales (FRA)tier 2
ssb:skatteinntekter (NOR)tier 1
dian:estadisticas_tributarias (COL)tier 2
aeat:recaudacion (ESP)tier 2
ratio_realised_to_forecast
wealth_tax_revenue_level
outcome
same as abovelog_real_local_currency
high_net_worth_emigration_count
outcome
icij:offshore_leaks_derivativestier 4
ssb:utvandringtier 1
minefi:tax_residency_changes (FRA)tier 2
annual_flow
reported_taxable_wealth_base
outcome
minefi:ISFtier 2
ssb:formuesskatt_base (NOR)tier 1
dian:patrimonio_declarado (COL)tier 2
aeat:patrimonio_declarado (ESP)tier 2
log_real
asset_reshuffling_into_exempt_classes
outcome
constructed:share of declared wealth in exempt/undervalued categories (business-asset exemption, pension wrappers, life-insurance wrtier 5
share
wealth_tax_introduction_or_hike_event
treatment
constructed:event indicators coded per country (FRA ISF 1982, abolition 2017/IFI 2018; NOR 2022 hike; COL 2022 introduction; ESP 202tier 5
indicator
real_gdp_growth
control
world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.MKTP.KDtier 2
ssb:GDP (NOR)tier 1
banrep:GDP (COL)tier 1
yoy_pct_change
top_marginal_income_tax_rate
control
oecd:tax_databasetier 2
level_pct
capital_gains_tax_rate
control
oecd:tax_databasetier 2
level_pct

● ready  · ● pending  · ● reconstruct-needed

Detailed result card

Result card — wealth_tax_capital_flight_revenue_yield_gap

Verdict: INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — FRA not in panel

Pre-registration

  • Claim: Wealth taxes produce a three-order causal chain. FIRST-ORDER: a new tax instrument is legislated and administered, generating measurable initial revenue — this is a genuine policy success on its own terms and we acknowledge the tax does collect money from wealthy residents in the first year. SECOND-ORDER: wealth-holder migration accelerates (France ISF 2012 outflows, Norway 2022 emigration spike, Colombia 2022-2023 outflow), along with portfolio reshuffling toward exempt or undervalued assets, under-reporting, and family-office restructuring. THIRD-ORDER: realised revenue trajectory falls systematically below legislator forecasts, pressure mounts on the remaining (less-mobile) tax base, and the distributional burden shifts toward non-emigrating upper-middle-class holders of illiquid wealth. Cases: France ISF/IFI 1982-2017 + 2018 reform, Norway 2022 wealth-tax hike, Colombia impuesto al patrimonio 2022, Spain impuesto a las grandes fortunas 2022.
  • Falsification rule: Not supported if, across the four cases: (a) FIRST-ORDER revenue is collected at p<0.05 (acknowledged success) AND (b) forecast- to-realised revenue ratio remains >=0.85 in at least 3/4 cases through year-3 post-introduction AND (c) no statistically detectable emigration response (HNW emigration flow not >1.5x synthetic-control counterfactual at p<0.10) in at least 3/4 cases. A first-order revenue success WITHOUT a yield gap and WITHOUT measurable emigration response would refute the causal chain.

Synthetic-control estimate

  • Error: FRA not in panel

Variables resolved

  • minefi:recettes_fiscales (FRA); ssb:skatteinntekter (NOR); dian:estadisticas_tributarias (COL); aeat:recaudacion (ESP) → wealth_tax_revenue_realised_to_forecast (outcome, n=2)
  • henley_private_clients_millionaire_report (annual); icij:offshore_leaks_derivatives; ssb:utvandring (NOR by income decile where available); minefi:tax_residency_changes (FRA) → high_net_worth_emigration_count (outcome, n=36)
  • minefi:ISF/IFI_base (FRA); ssb:formuesskatt_base (NOR); dian:patrimonio_declarado (COL); aeat:patrimonio_declarado (ESP) → reported_taxable_wealth_base (outcome, n=27)
  • constructed: event indicators coded per country (FRA ISF 1982, abolition 2017/IFI 2018; NOR 2022 hike; COL 2022 introduction; ESP 2022 IGF introduction) → wealth_tax_introduction_or_hike_event (treatment, n=140)
  • world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.MKTP.KD (FRA, ESP); ssb:GDP (NOR); banrep:GDP (COL) → real_gdp_growth (controls, n=178)

Generated by scripts/run_synth_did.py at 2026-05-04T20:29:27+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

Mechanism link: new tax (1st) -> mobility/reshuffling response (2nd) -> below-forecast yield + concentration on remaining base (3rd). The yield-gap test is the cleanest quantitative falsifier.

Authored framework. Read the transparency note.