IESET.
Policies·lebanon_edl_subsidy_1992_2020

Lebanon Edl Subsidy 1992 2020

LBN·1992 2020candidate
movescentral bank independencespending levelfinancial deregulation~rule of law

What the policy did

Throughout the post-civil-war period the Lebanese state subsidised Électricité du Liban (EDL), the loss-making public power utility, through Treasury transfers covering fuel-import shortfalls and operating deficits. With tariffs frozen at 1996 levels and chronic supply rationing despite budgeted reform plans, cumulative EDL transfers became one of the largest single contributors to Lebanon's public-debt trajectory across 1992-2020.

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
central bank independence
monetary.central_bank_independence
De jure and de facto independence of the central bank from fiscal authority. Per D.1.5 scope, one of the framework's defensible monetary positions.
decreased · weak
lower independence (fiscal dominance, politicised appointments)
Persistent EDL deficit financing pulled BDL into supporting Treasury borrowing.
spending level
fiscal.spending_level
General government spending as share of GDP, excluding transfers already captured under fiscal.transfer_expansion to avoid double-counting.
increased · weak
higher spending share
Annual Treasury transfers to EDL added persistent multi-percent-of-GDP spending pressure.
~
financial deregulation
regulatory.financial_deregulation
Financial-sector regulation — banking separation, capital requirements, cross-border activity rules, derivatives oversight.
mixed · weak
EDL contracts and IPP exemptions created opaque off-budget regulatory arrangements.
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.
decreased · weak
weaker rule of law
Tariff and procurement decisions operated outside transparent rule-based processes.

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.central_bank_independence
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
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
viamonetary.central_bank_independencefiscal.spending_levelinstitutional.rule_of_law
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
The v1 decomposition (three channels: WGI gov effectiveness, WGI rule of law, IMF debt/GDP) left 98% of the Nordic-vs-Southern-Europe log GDP/capita gap unexplained.
nordic_outcome_persistence_decomposition_v2inferred
viainstitutional.rule_of_lawfiscal.spending_level
PARTIAL — coef=-0.1578, p=0.211 (above α=0.1); direction inconclusive
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_levelmonetary.central_bank_independence
INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — treatment 'uk_post_2008' has no within-country variation under country fixed effects
run pending
The September 2022 UK gilt-market dysfunction had its operative amplification mechanism in the foreign-currency-collateral exposure of the Liability-Driven Investment (LDI) leveraged-derivative chain in the UK pension system, not in a "fiscal limit" reached by the sovereign issuer.
truss_2022_currency_user_ldi_collateral_mechanisminferred
viamonetary.central_bank_independencefiscal.spending_level
INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — no outcome variable loaded; missing: ['boe:IUDLG7N', 'boe:IUDMNZC', 'boe:gilt_volatility (manual); ice:UK_gilt_options', 'fred:DEXUS…
run pending
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
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

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.