IESET.
Policies·be_regularisation_migrants_2000

Regularisation Migrants 2000

BEL·1999 2007candidate
movestax progressivitytax corporatespending levelimmigration openness

What the policy did

Loi du 22 décembre 1999 establishing a one-off regularisation procedure for irregular migrants resident in Belgium, processing some 32,000 applications and granting residence to roughly 50,000 individuals. The campaign opened 10 January-31 January 2000 and was administered by an ad hoc commission, with criteria including long residence, family ties, prolonged asylum proceedings, and humanitarian grounds.

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
tax progressivity
fiscal.tax_progressivity
Progressivity of the personal income tax schedule, including top marginal rates, bracket spread, and targeted credits (EITC-equivalents).
decreased · weak
less progressive (flatter rates, compression, smaller credits)
Bringing previously informal residents into the labour-tax base broadened payroll-tax incidence.
tax corporate
fiscal.tax_corporate
Statutory and effective corporate tax rates, treatment of depreciation, and international competitiveness.
decreased · weak
lower corporate tax burden
Indirect: regularised workforce reduced employer reliance on undeclared labour and associated penalties.
spending level
fiscal.spending_level
General government spending as share of GDP, excluding transfers already captured under fiscal.transfer_expansion to avoid double-counting.
decreased · weak
lower spending share
Newly regularised residents gained access to mainstream social services, raising programme outlays.
immigration openness
regulatory.immigration_openness
Immigration policy openness — work visas, family reunification, asylum processing, border enforcement posture.
increased · weak
more open (easier legal immigration, broader asylum)
Direct policy effect: legalised tens of thousands of irregular migrants by statute.

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?".

Countries in the top quartile of Heritage lower-tax-burden score in 2024 have lower latest-available extreme-poverty headcount than bottom-quartile countries, consistent with free-market country policy regimes outperforming less market-oriented regimes on this outcome.
heritage_tax_burden_extreme_poverty_current_gapinferred
viafiscal.tax_progressivityfiscal.spending_levelfiscal.tax_corporate
PARTIAL — gap sign/magnitude not decisive (diff=1.296, p=0.7399)
partial
Conditional on latest real GDP per capita and broad Heritage region, countries with higher Heritage lower-tax-burden score in 2024 have lower latest-available extreme-poverty headcount.
heritage_tax_burden_extreme_poverty_income_region_robustnessinferred
viafiscal.tax_progressivityfiscal.spending_levelfiscal.tax_corporate
PARTIAL — controlled coefficient not decisive (coef=-1.28, p=0.2307)
partial
Large welfare states sustain long-run real GDP per capita growth when paired with market flexibility (low product- and labour-market barriers), trade openness, and fiscal discipline (debt-to-GDP below 90%), but not when paired with rigid product and labour markets, in an OECD and rich- country panel 1980-2020.
welfare_state_market_flexibility_complementinferred
viafiscal.spending_level
PARTIAL — coef=+3.308e-18, p=0.653; effect magnitude effectively zero
partial
Conditional on latest real GDP per capita and broad Heritage region, countries with higher Heritage lower-tax-burden score in 2024 have higher latest-available account ownership.
heritage_tax_burden_account_ownership_income_region_robustnessinferred
viafiscal.tax_progressivityfiscal.spending_levelfiscal.tax_corporate
REFUTED — controlled market-score coefficient has opposite sign and p=0.01161
refuted
Conditional on latest real GDP per capita and broad Heritage region, countries with higher Heritage lower-tax-burden score in 2024 have higher latest-available employment rate.
heritage_tax_burden_employment_rate_income_region_robustnessinferred
viafiscal.tax_progressivityfiscal.spending_levelfiscal.tax_corporate
PARTIAL — controlled coefficient not decisive (coef=0.8483, p=0.3826)
partial
Conditional on latest real GDP per capita and broad Heritage region, countries with higher Heritage lower-tax-burden score in 2024 have higher latest-available female labour-force participation.
heritage_tax_burden_female_lfp_income_region_robustnessinferred
viafiscal.tax_progressivityfiscal.spending_levelfiscal.tax_corporate
PARTIAL — controlled coefficient not decisive (coef=-0.03732, p=0.9727)
partial
Countries in the top quartile of Heritage lower-tax-burden score in 2024 have higher latest-available real GDP per capita PPP than bottom-quartile countries, consistent with free-market country policy regimes outperforming less market-oriented regimes on this outcome.
heritage_tax_burden_gdp_pc_ppp_current_gapinferred
viafiscal.tax_progressivityfiscal.spending_levelfiscal.tax_corporate
PARTIAL — gap sign/magnitude not decisive (diff=-9554, p=0.1259)
partial
Countries in the top quartile of Heritage lower-tax-burden score in 2024 have higher latest-available high-technology export share than bottom-quartile countries, consistent with free-market country policy regimes outperforming less market-oriented regimes on this outcome.
heritage_tax_burden_high_tech_exports_current_gapinferred
viafiscal.tax_progressivityfiscal.spending_levelfiscal.tax_corporate
REFUTED — top-vs-bottom gap has opposite sign and Welch p=0.009281
refuted

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.