Policies·au_banking_royal_commission_2017

Banking Royal Commission — Australia 2017-19

AUS·2017 – 2019·enacted 2017-12-14·Liberal-National Coalitioncandidate

movesfinancial deregulation↓rule of law↑

What the policy did

Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry established by Letters Patent 14 December 2017 under Commissioner Kenneth Hayne following Coalition party-room reversal. Final Report February 2019 made 76 recommendations across consumer-credit, mortgage-broker remuneration, financial-advice, and regulator design (the "twin peaks" APRA/ASIC framework). Successor Morrison government committed to implementing all but one recommendation; 54 of 76 had been legislated or actioned by mid-2021.

Policy-content fingerprint — what this policy moved, on which axes

Per invariant 3, reforms are scored by what they did on each channel-separated axis, not by the party that enacted them. This fingerprint is how the policy-match engine finds historical analogues.

intended

↓

financial deregulation

regulatory.financial_deregulation

Financial-sector regulation — banking separation, capital requirements, cross-border activity rules, derivatives oversight.

decreased · moderate

looser financial regulation

Strengthened consumer-credit, mortgage-broker, and financial-advice conduct regulation; ASIC/APRA remit expanded.

↑

rule of law

institutional.rule_of_law

Rule of law as institutional substrate — contract enforcement, judicial independence, equal treatment before the law. Upstream of most other axes.

increased · moderate

stronger rule of law

Royal Commission with statutory coercive powers; extensive enforcement-referral pipeline.

Enacted by

Empirical evidence — linked hypotheses

Explicit links are curated by the author. Inferred links are hypotheses in the library that test the same axes this policy moved — the framework's answer to "what does the data say about a policy like this?".

El Salvador's FDI inflow, real-GDP growth, tourism arrivals, and business-formation rate accelerated under the Bukele era (2019-2024) relative to a Central American peer-country donor pool (Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Dominican Republic).

bukele_fdi_gdp_investment_climate_2019_2024inferred

viainstitutional.rule_of_law

PARTIAL — mean_gap=-0.697, |gap|/pre_sd=1.2, p_perm=1 (gap below 0.5×pre_sd or placebo p≥0.10)

partial

Across a pre-registered panel of OECD and major emerging-market economies from 1996 to 2023, stronger rule-of-law institutions predict deeper private credit intermediation after country and year fixed effects and basic macro controls.

market_order_rule_of_law_private_credit_depth_panelinferred

viainstitutional.rule_of_lawregulatory.financial_deregulation

PARTIAL — coef=+4.153, p=0.513 (above α=0.1); direction inconclusive

partial

Following El Salvador's perceived success with the régimen de excepción (March 2022 onward) and the homicide-rate collapse, multiple Latin American jurisdictions enacted Bukele-style emergency measures: Honduras (Estado de Excepción in select municipalities, December 2022), Ecuador (Estado de Excepción + designation of gangs as terrorist organisations, January 2024), Peru (Estado de Emergencia in Lima/Callao, 2023-).

latam_bukele_imitation_effect_homicide_security_stateinferred

viainstitutional.rule_of_lawregulatory.financial_deregulation

PARTIAL — ATT=+0.03571, p=0.598, N=99, treated_countries=1 (above α=0.10)

partial

Across countries 1990-2020, higher capital-account openness (proxied by EFW area-4 freedom-to-trade-internationally sub- components covering capital controls, plus IMF AREAER-derived binary capital-control intensity where available) predicts higher subsequent 10-year real per-capita GDP growth, conditional on initial income, rule-of-law level, trade openness, and financial- development depth.

liberal_capital_account_openness_growth_premium_panelinferred

viainstitutional.rule_of_lawregulatory.financial_deregulation

PARTIAL — coef=+1.115e-17, p=0.0255; effect magnitude effectively zero

partial

Major episodes of financial deregulation — the 1999 US Gramm-Leach- Bliley repeal of Glass-Steagall, the 1986 UK Financial Services Act ("Big Bang"), Chile's 1974-1981 banking liberalisation, Sweden's late-1980s credit-market liberalisation, and Japan's 1996-2001 Big Bang — are followed within 10 years by higher-than-baseline incidence of banking crises, measured by the Laeven-Valencia Systemic Banking Crisis Database, and by elevated credit-to-GDP gaps per BIS.

financial_deregulation_crisis_vulnerabilityinferred

viaregulatory.financial_deregulation

SUPPORTED — sign matches claim +, ATT=+0.04145, p=3.34e-07, N=302, treated_countries=8

supported

Across a pre-registered panel of OECD and major emerging-market economies from 1996 to 2023, stronger rule-of-law institutions predict faster real GDP per capita growth after country and year fixed effects and basic macro controls.

market_order_rule_of_law_gdp_pc_growth_panelinferred

viainstitutional.rule_of_law

PARTIAL — coef=-0.08348, p=0.913 (above α=0.1); direction inconclusive

partial

Across a pre-registered panel of OECD and major emerging-market economies from 1996 to 2023, stronger rule-of-law institutions predict higher high-technology export intensity after country and year fixed effects and basic macro controls.

market_order_rule_of_law_high_tech_exports_panelinferred

viainstitutional.rule_of_law

PARTIAL — coef=+0.621, p=0.746 (above α=0.1); direction inconclusive

partial

Across a pre-registered panel of OECD and major emerging-market economies from 1996 to 2023, stronger rule-of-law institutions predict higher private and total investment shares after country and year fixed effects and basic macro controls.

market_order_rule_of_law_investment_share_panelinferred

viainstitutional.rule_of_law

PARTIAL — coef=-0.3477, p=0.814 (above α=0.1); direction inconclusive

partial

Similar historical policies

Ranked by axis-fingerprint overlap with this policy. Direction match bolded — those are the closest historical analogues. Shape of the match is what drives policy-outcome comparison, not the country or party label.

Takenaka Plan / Program for Financial Revival (2002)

JPN·2002

match

1.5

financial deregulationrule of law

BDDK Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency establishment

TUR·1999

match

1.5

financial deregulationrule of law

Saudi Capital Market Law (Royal Decree M/30)

SAU·2003