Policies·ch_vat_referendum_rejection_1977

Swiss VAT (Mehrwertsteuer) referendum rejections 1977 and 1979

CHE·1977 – ·enacted 1977-06-12candidate

What the policy did

Federal Council's proposal to introduce value-added tax (Mehrwertsteuer) rejected by Swiss referendum 12 June 1977 (40.5% Yes / 59.5% No) and again 20 May 1979 (34.6% Yes / 65.4% No). VAT eventually adopted only in 1994 referendum. Demonstrated the referendum-as-tax-ratchet-limit dynamic characteristic of Swiss fiscal federalism.

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

—

spending level

fiscal.spending_level

General government spending as share of GDP, excluding transfers already captured under fiscal.transfer_expansion to avoid double-counting.

unchanged · weak

Referendum blocked tax-base expansion; status-quo preserved.

Enacted by

swiss_magic_formula_consensus_1959_2003

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?".

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

Truss 2022 mini-budget shows that unfunded fiscal expansion above the ZLB triggers sharp bond-market and currency responses through expected-inflation and risk-premium channels.

unfunded_fiscal_expansion_above_zlb_bond_market_responseinferred

viafiscal.spending_level

SUPPORTED — GBP/USD trough on 2022-09-26 (1.0703) was 5.02% below the 2022-09-22 pre-announcement close (1.1269); log-decline +0.0515 clears the 3.0% threshold …

supported

Fiscal multipliers are state-dependent: large at ZLB, small near full employment; no single-number answer is policy-relevant.

fiscal_multipliers_state_dependentinferred

viafiscal.spending_level

REFUTED — sign - OPPOSITE claim +, cumulative_effect=-1.569, h=5, p_h=0.0155

refuted

The Soviet central-planning system, having already exhibited TFP stagnation 1970-1989, underwent a canonical institutional and economic collapse 1989-1998 as plan-enforcement was withdrawn without functioning market institutions in place.

soviet_union_central_planning_gdp_collapse_1989_1991inferred

viafiscal.spending_level

INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — no outcome variable loaded; missing: ['derived: count of canonical_metrics with threshold met']

run pending

UK Truss mini-budget 2022 gilt crisis reflected market confidence and institutional-framework rupture rather than an MMT-predicted hard fiscal limit, because the BoE restored order by intervening as issuer.

uk_truss_mini_budget_currency_sovereign_mechanisminferred

viafiscal.spending_level

partial — Both mechanism legs are directionally consistent but at least one fails the SUPPORTED threshold: FX leg holds (5.02% trough decline); yield leg partia…

partial

UK GDP per capita (PPP, constant international dollars) diverged negatively from a matched synthetic counterfactual of similar-income anglophone/developed economies (USA, CAN, AUS, NZL, DEU, NLD, CHE) starting around 2008 and widening post-2016 (Brexit referendum).

uk_economic_decline_multi_movementinferred

viafiscal.spending_level

INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — treatment 'uk_post_2008' has no within-country variation under country fixed effects

run pending

Across the OECD 38, over 2000-latest, larger general government final consumption as a share of GDP is associated with slower growth in real household disposable income per capita, controlling for demographics, initial-income level, energy-price exposure, and trade openness.

state_size_reduces_household_income_growthinferred

viafiscal.spending_level

PARTIAL — coef=-1.248e-17, p=0.809; effect magnitude effectively zero

partial

Credible fiscal consolidation episodes — defined as sustained primary balance improvement of at least 2% of GDP over 3 years, not reversed within 5 years, and accompanied by declining debt-to-GDP trajectories — predict stronger subsequent 10-year real GDP per capita growth and private investment than repeated discretionary fiscal stimulus in mature economies, in an OECD panel 1980-2020.

fiscal_consolidation_credibility_growthinferred

viafiscal.spending_level

supported

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.

Ireland Haughey state-of-nation broadcast (January 1980)

Adani JKIA and Ketraco deal cancellations (Sep-Nov 2024)

Broad-based government cabinet reshuffle (Jul-Aug 2024)

KEN·2024