Policies·nz_wellington_airport_sale_1998

Wellington International Airport 66% sale

NZL·1998 – ·enacted 1998-08-13candidate

What the policy did

Announced 13 August 1998 sale of 66% Crown stake in Wellington International Airport Ltd to Infratil consortium. Proximate cause of NZ First coalition breakdown 14 August 1998 after Deputy PM Winston Peters opposed sale. Sale completed October 1998 for NZD 96m.

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

↓

sectoral licensing

regulatory.sectoral_licensing

Sector-specific licensing regimes, concentration / quota allocation, state-controlled entry (energy, telecoms, healthcare, banking).

decreased · weak

looser licensing, more open entry

Private ownership of major regional airport infrastructure.

Enacted by

newzealand_shipley_national_1997_1999

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?".

Among high-income economies 1990-2020, services-sector competition — measured by low barriers to entry, low incumbent-protection scores, and high churn in retail, transport, communications, and professional services — predicts long-run prosperity (real GDP per capita growth and labour-productivity growth) better than manufacturing-specific industrial policy spending.

sectoral_competition_services_productivityinferred

viaregulatory.sectoral_licensing

PARTIAL — coef=+0.000842, p=0.361 (above α=0.05); direction inconclusive

partial

Across an unbalanced panel of OECD and emerging-market economies 1980-2020, higher firm-entry rates (new business registrations per 1000 working-age population) predict stronger subsequent 20-year total-factor-productivity growth, after controlling for initial GDP per capita, human capital, and capital-deepening rates.

firm_entry_rate_long_run_productivityinferred

viaregulatory.sectoral_licensing

SUPPORTED — coef=+0.06104 (sign matches claim +), p=0.0079

supported

US business-dynamism measures — the firm-formation rate (new establishments per 1000 working-age population), the job- reallocation rate, and the share of employment in firms aged 0-5 — declined materially over 1980-2020.

austrian_kirzner_entrepreneurship_business_dynamism_decline_us_1980_2020inferred

viaregulatory.sectoral_licensing

INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — no outcome variable loaded; missing: ['bls:business_dynamics_statistics_firm_births', 'bls:business_dynamics_statistics_young_firm_e…

run pending

Across US states and a cross-country panel of OECD and middle- income economies 1980-2020, higher occupational and business licensing burdens predict weaker entrepreneurship rates and lower intergenerational income mobility over long horizons.

licensing_burden_income_mobilityinferred

viaregulatory.sectoral_licensing

INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — no outcome variable loaded; missing: ['academic:chetty_hendren_kline_saez_igmb', 'bls:business_dynamics_statistics_firm_births', 'bl…

run pending

Across US states 2000-2022, higher occupational-licensing intensity in licensed service sectors (proxied by share of state workforce requiring a state-issued license, derived from BLS Current Population Survey supplements) is associated with higher consumer prices in the affected service sectors and lower employment in those sectors, conditional on state per-capita income, demographic composition, and rural/urban share.

classical_occupational_licensing_consumer_loss_us_state_panelinferred

viaregulatory.sectoral_licensing

INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — no outcome variable loaded; missing: ['bls:cpi_services_subindex', 'bls:ces_state_employment']

run pending

Liberal democracies experience monotonic positional drift toward larger, more redistributive states across multi-decade horizons.

liberal_democracy_managerial_flywheel_driftinferred

viaregulatory.sectoral_licensing

REFUTED — median final drift = -3.00 (13/26 positive, share = 50%). The corpus does not show monotonic statist drift across the liberal-democracy panel.

refuted

Countries in the top quartile of Heritage business freedom in 2024 have higher latest-available account ownership than bottom-quartile countries, consistent with free-market country policy regimes outperforming less market-oriented regimes on this outcome.

heritage_business_freedom_account_ownership_current_gapinferred

viaregulatory.sectoral_licensing

SUPPORTED — top-vs-bottom gap has expected sign + and Welch p=1.952e-17

supported

Conditional on latest real GDP per capita and broad Heritage region, countries with higher Heritage business freedom in 2024 have higher latest-available account ownership.

heritage_business_freedom_account_ownership_income_region_robustnessinferred

viaregulatory.sectoral_licensing

SUPPORTED — controlled market-score coefficient has expected sign + and p=0.004837

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.

Telstra full privatisation (T1, T2, T3 tranches)

Bolivia Hydrocarbons Law 3058 of 2005

Western Accord — NEP dismantling (1985)

CAN·1985