IESET.
Policies·greece_simitis_stabilisation_1985_1987

Greece Simitis stabilisation programme (1985-1987)

GRC·1985 – 1987·enacted 1985-10-11·PASOK majoritycandidate
movesspending level↓monetary expansion direction↑trade openness↓

What the policy did

Kostas Simitis as National Economy Minister announced stabilisation programme 11 October 1985 under IMF-adjacent pressure. 15% drachma devaluation October 1985; two-year public-sector pay freeze; import- deposit scheme; expenditure controls. Partial inflation decline and external-account improvement; programme was politically unpopular and substantially unwound by 1988.

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.
decreased · moderate
lower spending share
Public-sector pay freeze + expenditure controls.
↑
monetary expansion direction
monetary.monetary_expansion_direction
Direction of monetary-base expansion decisions relative to trend. Separate from fiscal.transfer_expansion even when correlated.
increased · moderate
expansionary (balance sheet, rates lower than Taylor)
Devaluation loosened monetary stance; but domestic tightening.
↓
trade openness
regulatory.trade_openness
Trade policy openness — tariffs, non-tariff barriers, FTAs, industrial protection.
decreased · weak
more protectionist
Import-deposit scheme temporarily raised import cost.

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?".

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_levelmonetary.monetary_expansion_direction
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
Across the 2008-2014 ZLB era and the 2020-2021 pandemic-response window, large-scale de-facto monetary finance of fiscal expansion in the US, Japan, and the Eurozone did not produce headline-CPI inflation consistent with naive quantity-theoretic monetisation predictions: cumulative central-bank balance-sheet expansion exceeded 15% of GDP while CPI YoY remained below 3% in each economy across both windows.
monetary_finance_zlb_no_inflationinferred
viamonetary.monetary_expansion_directionfiscal.spending_level
REFUTED — CPI threshold breach: USA zlb_2008_2014 peak 3.81% in 2008; USA covid_2020_2021 peak 4.68% in 2021; Eurozone CPI not loaded
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
viamonetary.monetary_expansion_directionfiscal.spending_level
INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — no outcome variable loaded; missing: ['derived: count of canonical_metrics with threshold met']
run pending
Fiscal multipliers are state-dependent: large at ZLB, small near full employment; no single-number answer is policy-relevant.
fiscal_multipliers_state_dependentinferred
viamonetary.monetary_expansion_directionfiscal.spending_level
REFUTED — sign - OPPOSITE claim +, cumulative_effect=-1.569, h=5, p_h=0.0155
refuted
Estonia adopted among the most radical market-liberalisation packages of any post-Soviet state — flat tax (26% universal rate, 1994), currency board (EEK pegged to DM/EUR, 1992), rapid privatisation, unilateral free trade, and minimal capital controls — and by 2007 had recovered to Soviet-era GDP per capita levels and substantially exceeded them, while Belarusian and Ukrainian peers had not recovered comparably.
estonia_market_reform_post_soviet_growth_1991_2007inferred
viaregulatory.trade_openness
PARTIAL — recovery threshold pass=True (year_recovered=1998, 2007 vs 1991 = 70.53282727739165); Baltic−CIS gap pass=False (gap=5.1509956229348575)
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_levelregulatory.trade_openness
PARTIAL — coef=+3.308e-18, p=0.653; effect magnitude effectively zero
partial
Post-2008 large-scale asset purchase programmes by the Federal Reserve, ECB, Bank of England, and Bank of Japan produced a measurable divergence between asset-price inflation (equities and residential real estate) and headline consumer-price inflation until roughly 2021.
qe_asset_inflation_vs_cpi_divergence_post_2008inferred
viamonetary.monetary_expansion_directionfiscal.spending_level
refuted — Only 2 of 8 countries had even a 0.10 log-point asset-vs-CPI gap by 2020 (mean GAP_2020 = -0.02). The post-2008 divergence story does not survive a pa…
refuted
In a panel of advanced economies 1987-2007, base-money expansion and broad money growth correlate positively with asset-price indices (equity, real estate) but only weakly with headline CPI inflation.
austrian_monetary_expansion_asset_bubble_not_cpi_panelinferred
viamonetary.monetary_expansion_directionregulatory.trade_openness
INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — insufficient observations after listwise deletion (21)
run pending

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.

Abenomics — three arrows (2013)
JPN·2013
match
1.5
monetary expansion directionspending leveltrade openness
Korea IMF programme conditions and implementation (1997-2000)
KOR·1997
match
1.5
trade opennessmonetary expansion directionspending level
Thailand IMF Stand-By Arrangement (1997)
THA·1997
match
1.4
monetary expansion directionspending leveltrade openness
Turkey ISI model terminal crisis 1977-1980
TUR·1977
match
1.4
monetary expansion directiontrade openness
Yugoslav IMF stabilisation programmes 1982-1988
YUG·1982
match
1.4
spending levelmonetary expansion direction
Yemen Economic, Financial and Administrative Reform Program 1995
YEM·1995
match
1.3
spending leveltrade opennessmonetary expansion direction
Ingreso Familiar de Emergencia (IFE) COVID transfer (2020)
ARG·2020
match
1.3
spending levelmonetary expansion direction
IMF Stand-By Arrangement (Jun 2018, expanded Sep 2018)
ARG·2018
match
1.3
spending levelmonetary expansion direction