IESET.
Hypotheses·growth·yugoslav_self_management_productivity

Yugoslav worker-self-managed firms 1965-1980 achieved productivity growth comparable to southern European market peers at similar development stages, demonstrating that self-management can coexist with market allocation.

SUPPORTEDengine/runs/yugoslav_self_management_productivity

SUPPORTED — Yugoslav real GDP-per-capita grew 4.67%/yr (log) over 1965-1980, vs southern-European peer mean 4.29%/yr (ITA 3.66, ESP 4.24, GRC 4.59, PRT 4.67). Ratio 1.089 is within the [0.75, 1.25] band; YUG outperformed by +0.38pp/yr. Productivity claim survives the descriptive test on this proxy.

confidence cueThis is a clear pass for the claim as written. It still applies only to this sample, period, and method.

policy briefNeeds review

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

The data clearly moved in the predicted direction. Yugoslav real GDP-per-capita grew 4.67%/yr (log) over 1965-1980, vs southern-European peer mean 4.29%/yr (ITA 3.66, ESP 4.24, GRC 4.59, PRT 4.67).

why it matters

Growth claims can look convincing in single success stories. This test asks whether the pattern survives a broader comparison.

how the test works

It compares 5 country or place units from 1965 to 1980, using a descriptive design.

what was measured
What changed
  • Yugoslav self management indicator
What we checked
  • Log real income long run
  • Log income pc long run
  • Industrial production index
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/yugoslav_self_management_productivity
Loading chart…

Who has skin in the game — schools predicting on this

4 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 MIXEDpartial/no-callEco-Socialism / Red-Greenwins if SUPPORTEDschool supportedMarket Socialism (Lange-Lerner tradition)wins if SUPPORTEDschool supportedSocial Democraticwins if SUPPORTEDschool supported

Pre-registration

pre-registered
first-spec commit bae09ab · 2026-04-29T22:09:42Z

Yugoslav worker-self-managed firms 1965-1980 achieved productivity growth comparable to southern European market peers at similar development stages, demonstrating that self-management can coexist with market allocation.

Falsification criterion — what would disprove this

set before the run · honoured after

This hypothesis is considered falsified if:

PRIMARY (dispositive): the dispositive thresholds for this hypothesis are encoded directly in engine/runs/yugoslav_self_management_productivity/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):

formal test & threshold
test:      Compare YUG annual labour-productivity growth 1965-1980 against {ITA, ESP, GRC, PRT} mean; supported if YUG growth within ±25% of southern-European peer mean over the period.

Method

Template
descriptive
Clustering
none
Sample
5 countries · 1965 – 1980
Evidence type
descriptive

Cross-country descriptive comparison of Yugoslav productivity-growth 1965-1980 against southern-European market peers (ITA, ESP, GRC, PRT) at similar development stages. Tests whether self-managed firms achieved comparable productivity growth.

Data

VariableSourceTransform
log_real_gdp_long_run
outcome
maddison:gdp_ppptier 3
log
log_gdp_pc_long_run
outcome
maddison:gdppc_ppptier 3
log
industrial_production_index
outcome
jst:industrial_productiontier 3
log
tfp_index
outcome
pwt:rtfpnatier 3
level
yugoslav_self_management_indicator
treatment
constructed:indicator = 1 for YUG (worker self-management institutionalised post-1953)tier 5
indicator
log_population
control
world_bank_wdi:SP.POP.TOTLtier 2
log
trade_openness
control
world_bank_wdi:NE.TRD.GNFS.ZStier 2
level

● ready  · ● pending  · ● reconstruct-needed

Detailed result card

Yugoslav self-management productivity 1965-1980

Verdict: SUPPORTED — Yugoslav real GDP-per-capita grew 4.67%/yr (log) over 1965-1980, vs southern-European peer mean 4.29%/yr (ITA 3.66, ESP 4.24, GRC 4.59, PRT 4.67). Ratio 1.089 is within the [0.75, 1.25] band; YUG outperformed by +0.38pp/yr. Productivity claim survives the descriptive test on this proxy.

Summary

  • YUG mean annual log-growth of real GDP per capita 1965-1980: 4.67%/yr (n=15 year-on-year obs).
  • Southern-European peer mean (ITA, ESP, GRC, PRT): 4.29%/yr.
  • Ratio YUG / peer-mean: 1.089 (test band [0.75, 1.25]).
  • YUG vs peer-mean differential: +0.38pp/yr.

Country growth 1965-1980 (mean annual log-Δ gdppc)

| Country | Mean log-growth (%/yr) | n yoy obs | |---|---:|---:| | YUG | 4.67 | 15 | | ITA | 3.66 | 15 | | ESP | 4.24 | 15 | | GRC | 4.59 | 15 | | PRT | 4.67 | 15 |

Successor-state growth 1965-1980 (Maddison back-cast)

| Republic | Mean log-growth (%/yr) | n yoy obs | |---|---:|---:| | HRV | 4.96 | 15 | | SVN | 5.27 | 15 | | SRB | 4.79 | 15 | | BIH | 4.09 | 15 | | MKD | 4.64 | 15 | | MNE | 4.95 | 15 |

Method

  • Productivity proxy: Maddison mpd2020 real GDP per capita (2011 international dollars). PWT TFP (rtfpna) and PWT real GDP (rgdpna) do not cover Yugoslavia for 1965-1980 — PWT successor-state series begin 1990-1994. JST industrial-production lacks YUG. Maddison gdppc is the canonical long-run substitute when an employment series is unavailable.
  • Statistic: mean of yoy log-differences of gdppc, 1966-1980 (15 obs per country). Robust to start/end-year noise relative to an endpoint CAGR.
  • Threshold: the claim asserts comparable growth. We operationalise 'comparable' as YUG growth within ±25% of the unweighted southern-European peer mean (ITA, ESP, GRC, PRT). A symmetric band penalises both 'YUG fell behind' and 'YUG vastly outperformed' (the latter would re-open the question of whether commodity windfalls or external borrowing flattered the comparison — see steelman).

Steelman against this verdict

Skeptics (the author included) would argue Yugoslav 1965-1980 growth was inflated by (a) Marshall-Tito remittance flows and external borrowing that funded above-trend investment, and (b) Maddison's back-cast for YUG that splices republican accounts with imperfect deflators. The high YUG growth shown here might therefore reflect financial leverage rather than self-managed firm productivity. A sharper test would condition on net external borrowing and decompose growth into TFP vs capital-deepening — but PWT TFP for YUG is unavailable, foreclosing that decomposition with on-disk vintages. Result is supportive of the market-socialist claim conditional on the proxy.

Data

  • maddison:mpd2020 (real GDP per capita, 2011 intl $)

Notes

Stub seeded from a market-socialist school prediction about Yugoslav self-management productivity. YUG is a defunct ISO code; needs human review of historical data sources (Madison, Penn World Table).

Authored framework. Read the transparency note.