Derived from the steelman + listed predictions. These are the framework axes this school makes empirical claims about. Any hypothesis testing one of these axes is relevant evidence, whether or not the school explicitly cited that hypothesis ID.
Product-market regulation, entry barriers, licensing burdens, network-industry regulation, price controls.
Rule of law as institutional substrate — contract enforcement, judicial independence, equal treatment before the law. Upstream of most other axes.
Security of private property rights — formal recognition, expropriation risk, titling systems.
Trade policy openness — tariffs, non-tariff barriers, FTAs, industrial protection.
General government spending as share of GDP, excluding transfers already captured under fiscal.transfer_expansion to avoid double-counting.
Direction of monetary-base expansion decisions relative to trend. Separate from fiscal.transfer_expansion even when correlated.
Ease of hiring/firing, collective-bargaining scope, minimum wage rigidity, temporary/permanent contract regulation.
Size of cash and near-cash transfer programmes (unemployment benefits, means-tested assistance, universal child benefits). Architecturally distinct from forced-saving schemes — see condition welfare_architecture.
The Austrian position holds that monetary expansion beyond the supply of real savings produces artificially low interest rates, which in turn cause malinvestment in long-duration capital projects that cannot be completed profitably at real-resource-available rates. The subsequent adjustment — the "bust" — is not a failure of markets but a necessary reallocation away from projects that were never economically viable. Central banks that attempt to prevent this adjustment via further expansion only defer and deepen the correction. Hard-money advocates extend this to argue that fractional reserve banking is inherently destabilising and that a commodity-backed monetary standard would produce fewer and milder cycles. The tradition further holds that central planning is systematically unable to perform economic calculation because market prices are the only viable information mechanism for resource allocation (Mises 1920, Hayek 1945) — a claim that has strong empirical support in the socialist-calculation debate's verdict.
Historical movements (parties, governments, doctrinal coalitions) whose programmes the framework codes as aligned with, opposed to, or partially aligned with this school's predictions. Alignment is scored by what the movement enacted on each axis, not by the labels it used.
Monetary expansion produces asset price inflation with a lag across developed economies.
Fiat currencies lose purchasing power against hard assets over long horizons.
Argentine convertibility and subsequent collapse (Menem 1991–2001) reflects rule-based money's appeal combined with fixed-regime rigidity risk that Austrian theory predicts.
Post-2008 QE programmes produced asset-price inflation without proportional consumer-price inflation — a specific empirical pattern consistent with ABCT's weaker form.
Countries maintaining central bank independence experience fewer hyperinflation episodes than countries where monetary policy is subordinated to fiscal needs.
Unfunded government fiscal expansions during boom periods (as in Blair–Brown 2001–2007 UK and Kirchner Argentina 2003–2015) produce subsequent structural fiscal weakness.
Menem's 1991–2001 currency board succeeded at controlling inflation while rigid, but collapsed when fiscal profligacy at provincial level produced debt-service costs the fixed regime could not absorb — vindicating the Austrian warning that rule-based money cannot substitute for fiscal discipline.
Soviet and Chavismo-era Venezuelan price controls produced the specific pattern Austrian calculation-debate theory predicts: shortages, quality degradation, black markets, and producer exit — not merely distributional effects.
Pre-1914 classical-gold-standard episodes (excluding wartime suspensions) show lower long-run average inflation than any comparable-length fiat-regime sample, even if short-run price-level volatility is higher.
Argentine real GDP under Milei shock-therapy recovers faster than the LatAm peer average after the initial 2024H1 contraction, consistent with Austrian claim that post-stabilisation recoveries are front-loaded once fiscal-dominance distortion is removed.
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
El Salvador's ~98% homicide-rate decline from 103/100k (2015) to 2.4/100k (2023) — with the sharpest decline occurring after the Mar 2022 régimen de excepción and the Jan 2023 CECOT opening — is causally attributable ...
El Salvador's fiscal trajectory under Bukele (2019-2024) shows improvement in the primary balance and stabilisation (or modest decline) in debt-to-GDP after the 2020 COVID spike, achieved via a combination of: (a) the...
Large-scale universal or near-universal transfer programmes produce a three-order causal chain
supported·Hypothesis:universal_transfer_programmes_labour_force_participation_declineAcross 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, initia...
The natural-gas price shock that began in late 2021 and intensified after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 produced a measurable differential contraction of EU industrial output relative to US, UK, and...
Policy-driven nuclear phaseouts produce a three-order causal chain
German industrial gross value added, manufacturing output, and real household income diverged materially from a synthetic-Germany donor- pool counterfactual over 2018-2025, and a variance decomposition across candidat...
Precautionary-principle-based regulation in the EU produces a three-order causal chain relative to the US regulatory baseline
The EU Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals regulation (REACH, entered into force 2007 with phased registration deadlines 2010, 2013, 2018) imposed substantial fixed-cost registration r...
Binding statutory price controls produce a three-order causal chain
The EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) — reporting phase from October 2023, certificate-purchase phase from 2026 — raises the effective landed cost of EU-manufactured CBAM-covered products (steel, aluminium,...
Binding rent control initiates a three-order causal chain
Argentina has experienced 12 distinct episodes of annual inflation exceeding 50% since 1945, each preceded by a fiscal deficit exceeding 4% of GDP financed via central bank money creation
Monetary finance of fiscal deficits (central-bank balance-sheet expansion directed at sovereign obligations in the absence of independent policy rate adjustment) produces a three-order causal chain
Italy's real GDP per capita (PPP, constant international dollars) was approximately unchanged between 1999 (euro launch) and 2023 — a quarter-century of near-zero cumulative growth, with modest levels of variation aro...
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, Nicara...
India's 1991 balance-of-payments-crisis-driven liberalisation programme (Manmohan Singh's package: rupee devaluation, industrial delicensing, trade liberalisation, FDI opening, partial financial- sector reform) produc...
Chile and Venezuela began the 1999-2023 window at broadly comparable GDP per capita (PPP, constant international dollars)
Canadian GDP per capita (PPP, constant international dollars) diverged negatively from a donor pool of resource-plus-advanced-anglophone-plus- small-open-developed economies (USA, AUS, NZL, GBR, NOR, CHE) starting aro...
Sectoral nationalisation produces a three-order causal chain
Spain's headline macroeconomic trajectory under the 2018-present PSOE-led governments is NOT uniformly worse than a peer euro-area donor pool, once euro-area-common shocks (COVID 2020-2021, 2022 energy shock, ECB rate...
China's 1978 Deng-era reforms — Household Responsibility System in agriculture, Special Economic Zones, dual-track price liberalisation, Township and Village Enterprise reform, gradual opening to FDI and trade — produ...
Under Financial Secretary John Cowperthwaite (1961–1971) and successors, Hong Kong pursued near-laissez-faire economic policy — no capital controls, no industrial policy, minimal tariffs, low flat taxes, and light lab...
From 2000 to 2023, Asian economies that continued market-oriented institutional reform from a low starting GDP-per-capita base — China, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka...
Developmentalist East Asian states (South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, China) pursuing active industrial policy — export-discipline, selective credit, state-directed FDI screening, targeted sector promotion — achieved hi...
El Salvador's homicide rate fell from 52 per 100,000 (2019) to 2.4 per 100,000 (2023) — a 95% reduction — under Bukele's Estado de Excepción security crackdown beginning March 2022
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 t...
Canadian real household disposable income per capita has stagnated or grown more slowly than in comparable resource-plus-anglophone-plus-small- open-developed economies (USA, AUS, NZL, GBR, NOR, CHE) over 2015-2023, o...
Strong employment-protection legislation (EPL) with high union wage-setting coverage and limited at-will dismissal produces a three-order causal chain in Southern European labour markets
Radical market liberalisation in Estonia produced stronger convergence than gradualist post-Soviet reform paths.
Industrial policy (sectoral targeting, export subsidies, conditional credit, technology push) succeeds in raising long-run manufacturing productivity and export sophistication when implemented in high-governance state...
Sweden’s post-1992 crisis market reforms — fiscal consolidation, inflation- targeting adoption, tax and pension overhauls, and product-market deregulation — predict stronger real GDP-per-capita growth during 1995–2024...
Countries that undertake unilateral tariff liberalisation — defined as an autonomous, non-FTA-driven reduction in the applied weighted-mean tariff of at least 5 percentage points sustained for at least 5 consecutive y...
Across a broad panel of economies 1980-2020, market reforms (privatisation, trade liberalisation, and price decontrol) produce durable gains in real GDP per capita growth only when rule-of-law scores exceed a minimum ...
Across a broad panel of economies 1980-2020, state allocation of resources — measured by government consumption share, state- enterprise share of output, and public-investment share — has negative long-run effects on ...
Labour-market flexibility (ease of hiring and firing, low EPL, decentralised wage bargaining) improves long-run employment rates, productivity growth, and GDP per capita only when paired with complementary adjustment ...
Higher government-consumption shares predict weaker TFP growth after controlling for public investment, education, and health spending, across a broad panel of advanced and emerging economies from 1970 to 2020.
Chile’s long-run income convergence is stronger after the combination of market reforms (1975–1990) and democratic institutional repair (1990 onward) than under the earlier state-led import-substitution regime (1950–1...
New Zealand’s 1984–1993 liberalisation (deregulation, tariff cuts, privatisation, inflation targeting, and fiscal consolidation) improved long-run macroeconomic stability and tradables-sector productivity over 1984–20...
Australia’s long expansion after the Hawke-Keating reforms (1983–1996) — including tariff cuts, financial deregulation, competition-policy introduction, and fiscal consolidation — is better predicted by market liberal...
Across countries 1990-2020, faster insolvency and bankruptcy resolution — measured by years to resolve, recovery rate, and strength of insolvency framework index — predicts stronger post- shock productivity recovery t...
Across emerging-market and developing economies 1990-2020, stronger contract enforcement — measured by years to resolve a commercial dispute, contract-enforcement index, and legal-origin dummies — predicts whether for...
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-product...
Across middle-income and catch-up economies 1980-2020, high state-directed allocation — measured by state-enterprise share of output, directed-credit intensity, and public-investment-driven growth — is associated with...
In Maddison long-run country panels, catch-up growth is materially faster below roughly 40 percent of US GDP per capita than above that threshold, but the post-threshold premium is small enough that the developmentali...
In a 1996-2018 Maddison/WGI cross-section, countries with stronger rule of law should show higher mean annual GDP-per-capita growth after controlling for initial income if the property-rights growth channel is strong ...
State capacity (proxied by government effectiveness, rule of law, and fiscal extraction) is a prerequisite for effective liberal market policy
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2023 country panel, stronger rule-of-law institutions should be associated with higher private and total investment shares through property-rights, contract-enforcement, and economic-calculation channels.
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2023 country panel, stronger rule-of-law institutions should be associated with deeper private credit intermediation through property-rights, contract-enforcement, and economic-calculation channels.
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2023 country panel, stronger rule-of-law institutions should be associated with faster real GDP per capita growth through property-rights, contract-enforcement, and economic-calculation channels.
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2023 country panel, stronger rule-of-law institutions should be associated with higher high-technology export intensity through property-rights, contract-enforcement, and economic-calculation channels.
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2023 country panel, more predictable and market-compatible regulation should be associated with higher private and total investment shares through entry, competition, and entrepreneurship channels.
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2023 country panel, more predictable and market-compatible regulation should be associated with higher employment rates through entry, competition, and entrepreneurship channels.
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2023 country panel, more predictable and market-compatible regulation should be associated with higher high-technology export intensity through entry, competition, and entrepreneurship channels.
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2023 country panel, more predictable and market-compatible regulation should be associated with faster real GDP per capita growth through entry, competition, and entrepreneurship channels.
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2023 country panel, higher broad economic-freedom scores should be associated with higher private and total investment shares through market-order, decentralized-allocation, and policy-predictability channels.
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2023 country panel, higher broad economic-freedom scores should be associated with faster real GDP per capita growth through market-order, decentralized-allocation, and policy-predictability channels.
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2023 country panel, higher broad economic-freedom scores should be associated with higher employment rates through market-order, decentralized-allocation, and policy-predictability channels.
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2023 country panel, higher broad economic-freedom scores should be associated with higher high-technology export intensity through market-order, decentralized-allocation, and policy-predictability channels.
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2023 country panel, higher inflation should be associated with lower investment shares through sound-money, calculation, and real-contracting channels.
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2023 country panel, higher inflation should be associated with slower real GDP per capita growth through sound-money, calculation, and real-contracting channels.
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2023 country panel, higher inflation should be associated with shallower private credit intermediation through sound-money, calculation, and real-contracting channels.
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2023 country panel, higher inflation should be associated with lower employment rates through sound-money, calculation, and real-contracting channels.
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2023 country panel, larger government expenditure shares should be associated with lower investment shares through crowding-out, tax-expectation, and discretionary-allocation channels.
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2023 country panel, larger government expenditure shares should be associated with slower real GDP per capita growth through crowding-out, tax-expectation, and discretionary-allocation channels.
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2023 country panel, larger government expenditure shares should be associated with shallower private credit intermediation through crowding-out, tax-expectation, and discretionary-allocation channels.
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2023 country panel, larger government expenditure shares should be associated with lower employment rates through crowding-out, tax-expectation, and discretionary-allocation channels.
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2023 country panel, larger tax-revenue shares should be associated with lower investment shares through private-incentive, retained-earnings, and deadweight-loss channels.
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2023 country panel, larger tax-revenue shares should be associated with slower real GDP per capita growth through private-incentive, retained-earnings, and deadweight-loss channels.
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2023 country panel, larger tax-revenue shares should be associated with shallower private credit intermediation through private-incentive, retained-earnings, and deadweight-loss channels.
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2023 country panel, larger tax-revenue shares should be associated with lower employment rates through private-incentive, retained-earnings, and deadweight-loss channels.
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2021 OECD/market-peer panel, more open capital accounts should be associated with higher FDI inflows as a share of GDP through capital mobility, allocative-efficiency, and external-discipline channels.
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2021 OECD/market-peer panel, more open capital accounts should be associated with higher private fixed-investment shares through capital mobility, allocative-efficiency, and external-discipline channels.
supported·Hypothesis:market_order_capital_account_openness_private_investment_share_panelAustrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2021 OECD/market-peer panel, more open capital accounts should be associated with higher high-technology export intensity through capital mobility, allocative-efficiency, and external-discipline channels.
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2021 OECD/market-peer panel, more open capital accounts should be associated with faster real GDP per capita growth through capital mobility, allocative-efficiency, and external-discipline channels.
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2021 OECD/market-peer panel, stronger fiscal balances should be associated with higher private fixed-investment shares through crowding-out, risk-premium, and fiscal-expectations channels.
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2021 OECD/market-peer panel, stronger fiscal balances should be associated with higher domestic savings shares through crowding-out, risk-premium, and fiscal-expectations channels.
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2021 OECD/market-peer panel, stronger fiscal balances should be associated with faster real GDP per capita growth through crowding-out, risk-premium, and fiscal-expectations channels.
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2021 OECD/market-peer panel, stronger fiscal balances should be associated with deeper private credit intermediation through crowding-out, risk-premium, and fiscal-expectations channels.
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2021 OECD/market-peer panel, larger public-debt shares should be associated with lower private fixed-investment shares through debt-overhang, future-tax-expectation, and sovereign-risk channels.
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2021 OECD/market-peer panel, larger public-debt shares should be associated with lower domestic savings shares through debt-overhang, future-tax-expectation, and sovereign-risk channels.
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2021 OECD/market-peer panel, larger public-debt shares should be associated with slower real GDP per capita growth through debt-overhang, future-tax-expectation, and sovereign-risk channels.
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2021 OECD/market-peer panel, larger public-debt shares should be associated with shallower private credit intermediation through debt-overhang, future-tax-expectation, and sovereign-risk channels.
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2021 OECD/market-peer panel, larger government-consumption shares should be associated with lower private fixed-investment shares through resource-crowding, bureaucratic-consumption, and private-sector displacement channels.
supported·Hypothesis:market_order_government_consumption_private_investment_share_panelAustrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2021 OECD/market-peer panel, larger government-consumption shares should be associated with lower domestic savings shares through resource-crowding, bureaucratic-consumption, and private-sector displacement channels.
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2021 OECD/market-peer panel, larger government-consumption shares should be associated with lower manufacturing value-added shares through resource-crowding, bureaucratic-consumption, and private-sector displacement channels.
Austrian theory predicts that, in a 1996-2021 OECD/market-peer panel, larger government-consumption shares should be associated with slower real GDP per capita growth through resource-crowding, bureaucratic-consumption, and private-sector displacement channels.
Austrian political economy predicts this market-process claim should hold: Among high-income frontier economies 1980-2020, countries with higher business dynamism — measured by firm-entry rates, job- reallocation rates, and low incumbent-employment share — maintain stronger real income growth per capita than countries with low churn and high incumbent protection. The pre-registered claim is that the top quartile of dynamism shows at least 0.4 percentage points higher annual real income growth than the bottom quartile, after controlling for initial income, education, and sectoral composition.
Market-process political economy predicts this claim should hold: Countries maintaining long-lived food price controls or state procurement show slower agricultural value-added growth than market-priced peers.
Austrian political economy predicts this market-process claim should hold: High public-debt overhang — defined as general government gross debt exceeding 90% of GDP for at least 5 consecutive years — predicts lower private gross fixed capital formation and slower real GDP per capita growth over subsequent 30-year windows, in a broad-country panel 1970-2020. The directional claim is that debt-overhang episodes are followed by cumulative private-investment shortfalls of 10-25% relative to matched non-overhang peers, and by annual growth shortfalls of 0.3-0.7 percentage points, controlling for initial income, institutions, and crisis history.
Austrian political economy predicts this market-process claim should hold: Deeper private-credit market proxies predict stronger productivity growth than state-owned banking allocation.
Austrian political economy predicts this market-order claim should hold: Higher broad economic freedom predicts faster real GDP per-capita growth.
Austrian political economy predicts this market-order claim should hold: Higher broad economic freedom predicts higher private-investment shares.
Austrian political economy predicts this monetary-order claim should hold: Sound-money institutions predict lower inflation.
Austrian political economy predicts this institutional-choice claim should hold: countries with stronger market institutions should attract higher net migration after controlling for income levels and conflict exposure.
Austrian political economy predicts this Hayekian claim should hold: increases in regulatory uncertainty should reduce private investment by increasing planning risk and the option value of waiting.
Austrian political economy predicts this market-order consumption claim should hold: stronger market-compatible regulatory quality should be associated with higher real household consumption per person.
Austrian political economy predicts this entrepreneurship claim should hold: higher startup density should predict faster frontier prosperity and productivity growth.
Austrian political economy predicts this credit-cycle claim should hold: private-credit booms should forecast investment volatility or subsequent productivity shortfall, consistent with malinvestment rather than neutral financial deepening.
Public electrification complements private-sector growth when regulatory quality is high; in low-regulatory-quality states, electricity access expansions show weaker links to manufacturing value added and business entry.
Energy-shock relief works better as targeted transfers or temporary tax smoothing in high-capacity states; administered price controls/subsidies predict shortages, fiscal slippage, or lower investment where pass-throu...
Green industrial policy complements markets when it lowers renewable costs or deployment without raising industrial electricity prices; where grid integration capacity is weak, higher renewable shares predict manufact...
Higher industrial electricity prices predict lower manufacturing value-added share and weaker industrial production growth.
Agricultural output growth achieved through forest-cover loss has weaker poverty-reduction returns and worse emissions outcomes than output growth without forest loss.
Fossil-fuel subsidy reductions lower emissions intensity only when paired with household compensation; otherwise they raise poverty or energy stress enough to weaken the just-transition claim.
In high-income countries, material footprint per capita can fall while life expectancy and life satisfaction are maintained or improved; refuted if footprint reductions systematically require welfare losses outside re...
carbon pricing achieves emissions reductions at lower output and household-cost penalties per ton abated than technology-specific mandates of similar ambition.
sustained household fuel or electricity price controls predict higher shortage frequency, larger fiscal subsidy burdens, and lower energy-sector investment.
fuel-subsidy reforms paired with targeted transfers produce stronger 5- to 15-year fiscal balances and social spending durability than unreformed universal subsidies.
network-sector unbundling combined with independent regulation predicts lower prices and better service quality than vertically integrated state or protected monopoly models.
Higher nuclear electricity share predicts lower industrial power-price volatility and lower fossil electricity share.
Higher fossil-fuel consumption subsidies predict higher energy intensity and slower renewable-share growth.
Expanding protected land lowers land-use emissions or forest loss without reducing food production per capita in countries with adequate yield growth.
Public investment crowds in renewable capacity and private investment during slack periods, but is refuted if higher public investment systematically displaces private capital without capacity gains.
Renewable-capacity growth increases net employment or prevents industrial-employment loss in regions with transition policy, while the claim is refuted if capacity growth coincides with persistent employment losses.
Rapid renewable electricity-share growth raises electricity prices in the short run unless fossil or nuclear backup volatility falls.
Lower annual hours worked reduce energy use and emissions per capita without proportionate reductions in life satisfaction or employment.
Fiscal consolidation within three years after recessions lowers employment and potential-output paths relative to countries that delay consolidation until recovery.
Larger automatic stabilizers reduce peak-to-trough GDP losses and poverty spikes during recessions, but may trade off against recovery speed if labor-market reentry is weak.
Public investment raises infrastructure and growth outcomes only where corruption control is high; where corruption control is low, higher public investment predicts debt accumulation without road, electricity, or gro...
Education spending raises human capital and later productivity only where governance quality and teacher/system capacity are high; spending alone is weakly related to outcomes in low-capacity systems.
Discretionary fiscal expansion raises real output with limited inflation when unemployment is above its country-specific 10-year mean, but the output gain shrinks and inflation pass-through rises when unemployment is ...
During the 2008-2012 crisis, faster fiscal stimulus in high-capacity states predicted smaller employment losses and faster GDP recovery; in low-capacity/high-debt states, stimulus size had weaker recovery payoff and w...
Government size only drags growth when the marginal increase is government consumption or wage-bill heavy; public investment-heavy expansions in high-capacity states have neutral or positive five-year productivity eff...
Government spending has a nonmonotonic relationship with growth: moderate-to-large spending is compatible with growth in high-effectiveness states, while similarly large spending in low-effectiveness states predicts l...
Public health spending reduces mortality and raises life expectancy when corruption control is high; low corruption-control states show weaker health outcome gains per spending point.
Industrial-policy intensity proxies such as R&D spending or high-tech export targeting predict durable high-tech export shares only above a government-effectiveness threshold; below it, the same policy intensity predi...
Public investment complements private investment and productivity only in high-execution states; in low government-effectiveness states, higher public capital formation predicts weaker private investment shares and no...
R&D spending converts into patenting and productivity only when private finance and regulatory quality are adequate; otherwise R&D intensity is weakly associated with innovation outcomes.
In OECD recessions from 1980-2024, larger automatic stabilizers cushion two-year GDP and employment losses only where government effectiveness is above the sample median; where effectiveness is low, the same spending ...
Social spending reduces poverty more strongly when tax administration and corruption control are high; in weak-capacity states, spending growth has lower poverty elasticity and higher fiscal slippage.
Higher tax revenue supports growth and poverty reduction when tax collection capacity and rule of law are high; above similar revenue shares in low-capacity states, marginal revenue predicts lower private investment a...
Lower out-of-pocket health-spending shares predict lower avoidable mortality and less medical impoverishment after total health spending is controlled; refuted if decommodification has no independent outcome gain.
Government deficits are associated with higher private-sector net saving, especially when current-account balances are stable; the claim is refuted if private saving does not co-move after accounting identities and va...
Public education spending reduces inequality or improves intergenerational mobility only when housing-cost burden is low.
Higher public education spending predicts higher secondary and tertiary attainment among lower-income cohorts and lower intergenerational earnings persistence; a null or regressive attainment effect would refute the e...
Higher interest expenditure shares predict lower public investment or education/health spending in EU country-years outside monetary-sovereign conditions.
Fiscal tightening predicts weaker next-year GDP growth when real interest rates are low or output gaps are negative, but not when inflation is high.
Fiscal expansions during high-slack years reduce unemployment and accelerate GDP recovery more than expansions near capacity, with no persistent inflation overshoot unless supply constraints bind.
R&D spending has larger high-tech export returns in countries with higher government effectiveness and rule of law.
Higher government consumption share predicts lower private investment share, especially when debt-service burden is high.
Higher health-spending shares improve mortality outcomes without reducing medium-run GDP-per-capita growth unless financed through high debt-service burdens.
higher central-bank independence predicts lower inflation volatility and stronger real wage growth over 15- to 30-year windows after controlling for fiscal dominance.
revenue-neutral tax shifts from income taxation toward broad consumption taxation predict higher household saving and private investment, without systematically weaker lower-decile consumption growth when transfers ar...
lower effective marginal tax rates on new investment predict faster capital deepening and manufacturing productivity growth than sector-specific investment credits.
expenditure rules that cap current spending while preserving public investment predict higher private investment and lower fiscal volatility than untargeted deficit rules.
binding fiscal rules with transparent escape clauses predict lower debt-service burdens and faster post-shock recovery than discretionary fiscal regimes at similar initial debt levels.
countries that shift toward broader tax bases and lower statutory marginal rates achieve higher 10- to 25-year private investment growth without lower total revenue ratios than comparable countries relying on narrow b...
Higher public education spending as a share of GDP predicts later human-capital gains only where governance quality is above the sample median.
Higher housing-cost burdens are associated with higher after-tax inequality even after market-income inequality is controlled.
Social spending reduces poverty more effectively when active labour programmes and family benefits make up a larger spending share.
Increases in top marginal income-tax rates lower top-income concentration without reducing medium-run GDP per capita growth or private investment more than matched lower-tax countries.
Higher public health spending reduces amenable mortality, infant mortality, and out-of-pocket burden after income and population-age controls; the claim is refuted if spending growth does not improve outcomes or only ...
Countries with higher pre-2020 public health spending shares had smaller 2019-2022 life-expectancy losses, conditional on age structure and income.
More generous public pensions lower elderly poverty and material deprivation, and the claim is weakened if gains are accompanied by persistent working-age tax wedges, debt-service stress, or lower employment.
Larger tax-and-transfer redistribution gaps predict faster bottom-40 real disposable-income growth over the next three years without a GDP-per-capita growth penalty larger than 0.3 percentage points per year.
R&D spending intensity predicts higher patent intensity only where government effectiveness or rule of law is high.
Higher social spending reduces market-income poverty more strongly where benefits are more cash-and-service universal, and the claim is weakened if poverty falls only through accounting transfers with no improvement i...
Higher tax revenue predicts faster growth only when it is associated with higher public investment or government effectiveness.
Health expenditure per capita increases life expectancy strongly at low and middle spending levels but has sharply diminishing returns above the OECD median.
Higher out-of-pocket health spending shares predict higher infant, under-5, or amenable mortality at a given income level.
Growth in food or crop production per rural worker predicts lower poverty rates and child mortality in low- and middle-income countries.
Declines in agricultural employment share predict faster GDP-per-capita growth only when manufacturing or services productivity rises at the same time.
Broadband infrastructure improves business entry, productivity, and export services when telecom competition and regulatory quality are high; monopoly rollout without competition shows weaker diffusion benefits.
Transport infrastructure raises regional productivity and employment where procurement quality and maintenance capacity are high; low-capacity buildouts show weaker productivity gains and higher debt per road-km impro...
More restrictive capital-account regimes reduce crisis incidence and exchange-rate volatility without lowering long-run investment or GDP growth in emerging markets.
deeper private capital markets predict faster reallocation of capital toward high-productivity firms and stronger aggregate TFP growth than bank-dominated systems with politically concentrated credit.
directed-credit intensity predicts lower marginal product of capital and slower total factor productivity growth than market-priced credit allocation.
moderate-to-strong IP protection predicts higher quality-adjusted innovation and technology diffusion, but extremely restrictive follow-on rules reduce downstream innovation.
stable rule-bound regulation predicts higher private investment and lower investment volatility than discretionary licensing or case-by-case industrial policy.
Higher ICT-sector value-added or productivity growth predicts faster aggregate GDP-per-hour growth.
Human-capital growth predicts TFP growth more strongly than capital-deepening alone over 5-year windows.
Growth in resident patent applications predicts TFP growth over the next 3-5 years more strongly than non-resident patenting.
Universal or broad health coverage improves health outcomes without reducing employment when financed through broad-based taxes or social insurance and managed by high-capacity institutions; payroll-heavy financing wi...
Urban infrastructure investment lowers mortality and supports urban productivity only when municipal/state capacity is high; rapid urbanization without service delivery predicts worse health and weaker productivity.
Energy use per capita has a strong positive association with life expectancy below a threshold but little additional association above high-income levels.
countries implementing durable packages of trade openness, monetary stability, property-rights improvement, and entry liberalization show stronger 15- to 30-year gains in median consumption, life expectancy, and human...
Higher physician density predicts lower amenable mortality, with larger effects where public coverage or public health spending is higher.
Credit-gap booms combined with house-price booms predict higher unemployment 2-4 years later.
Real residential property-price growth above income growth predicts weaker private consumption growth over the next 2 years.
Credit booms turn into damaging house-price cycles primarily where housing supply and permitting capacity are constrained; elastic-supply markets show smaller price booms and smaller post-boom employment losses.
EU countries with faster construction value-added or construction employment growth experience lower subsequent housing-cost overburden.
OECD country-years with higher housing-cost overburden rates have lower real private-consumption-per-capita growth over the next 1-3 years, after income, unemployment, and country/year effects.
Rising low-income rent burden predicts higher child poverty or disposable-income poverty, net of unemployment and GDP per capita.
Capital-market depth raises patenting and high-growth entry when rule of law and disclosure quality are high; in weak-institution settings, market depth predicts volatility and crisis exposure more than innovation.
Regulation complements markets when regulatory quality is high: higher regulatory quality predicts more business entry and less informality; high procedural burden with low regulatory quality predicts lower entry and ...
faster and more predictable contract enforcement predicts larger average firm scale, lower working-capital constraints, and higher labor productivity.
higher formal business-entry barriers predict larger informal sectors and lower small-firm productivity growth over long windows.
improvements in expropriation-risk and property-rights indicators predict higher private investment and longer project maturities, especially in capital-intensive sectors.
Higher collective-bargaining coverage lowers in-work poverty and low-wage incidence with no youth-employment penalty in coordinated systems, but is refuted if coverage mainly prices out young or low-skill workers.
Active labour-market spending reduces long-term unemployment only where case-management capacity and benefit conditionality are strong; passive benefit generosity without activation predicts longer unemployment duration.
Public childcare and family benefits raise female labour-force participation and fertility only when housing costs and childcare supply constraints are not binding; high transfers without supply expansion have weaker ...
In-work benefits increase low-income employment when phaseout cliffs are smooth and administration is simple; sharp cliffs or complex means tests predict lower hours growth and weaker reemployment.
More generous unemployment benefits do not lower employment when activation spending and case-management capacity are high; without activation, generosity predicts longer unemployment duration and lower employment rates.
Childcare and family-benefit expansions raise female labor-force participation and fertility without lowering maternal employment; refuted if cash-only benefits reduce employment or fail to move fertility.
Employment protection improves job security and tenure without creating youth/temporary-contract dualism only when active labor policy and growth are strong.
Higher private-credit depth and financial-sector value-added shares predict lower labor shares and weaker real investment after credit booms, supporting financialization critiques if robust.
Faster services-sector expansion predicts higher female labour-force participation, net of education and income.
Public employment or activation-heavy labor-market programs lower long-term unemployment and poverty more than passive transfers at similar fiscal cost.
In demand-constrained high-income economies, rising labor share predicts stronger consumption and GDP growth, while profit-share gains predict weaker domestic demand.
Moderate minimum-wage bite increases low-end wages and reduces working poverty with employment effects near zero; refuted if high-bite settings show significant low-skill job losses.
stricter employment protection legislation predicts higher youth unemployment and longer unemployment duration after demand shocks, with smaller effects where apprenticeships and temporary contracts are flexible.
high minimum-wage bite raises wages for covered incumbents but predicts weaker youth employment and higher informal employment in low-productivity regions.
lower entry barriers in childcare, retail, transport, and personal services predict higher female labor-force participation through lower household-service prices and more flexible jobs.
higher labor tax wedges predict lower prime-age employment and higher informality over long windows, with larger effects in middle-income economies.
Active labour-market spending predicts faster unemployment declines after unemployment shocks than passive cash-support spending.
Stricter employment protection legislation predicts higher youth unemployment, especially when GDP growth is weak.
Higher minimum-wage bite predicts higher low-education unemployment when productivity growth is below the OECD median.
Higher union density lowers wage dispersion but may reduce employment only where productivity growth is weak.
Larger vocational or work-based upper-secondary pathways predict lower youth unemployment without reducing tertiary progression.
Monetary tightening reduces labor share and wage growth more than profit income during disinflation episodes, implying a distributional cost channel.
Reductions in annual hours worked raise hourly productivity and wellbeing without lowering employment rates when implemented in high-productivity economies.
More generous unemployment benefits reduce household-income losses and recession depth, but the strongest claim is refuted if they materially lengthen unemployment duration after controlling for labor-demand shocks an...
Higher union density raises labor share and lowers disposable-income inequality without reducing medium-run GDP per hour growth once sector composition is controlled.
Higher household debt-service ratios predict slower real private-consumption growth especially after policy-rate increases.
Periods of policy rates below inflation/GDP-growth fundamentals predict later credit-gap and house-price expansions.
Higher pre-crisis bank capital buffers reduce crisis output losses without permanently lowering credit growth in high-supervision states; in weak-supervision states, nominal capital ratios do not prevent credit busts.
Financial depth supports productivity and innovation only under strong rule of law; in weak-rule-of-law settings, private credit growth predicts credit booms and asset prices more than TFP or patenting.
Large central-bank government-bond purchases lower long yields without producing proportional CPI inflation when unemployment is above pre-crisis levels.
US M2 or central-bank balance-sheet expansions predict asset-price inflation more strongly than CPI inflation over post-1990 windows.
credit booms occurring under subsidized or politically directed credit regimes produce deeper post-boom output losses than credit booms under market-priced credit.
negative real deposit rates created by interest-rate caps or high inflation reduce private saving and lower long-run domestic investment quality.
sustained excess broad-money growth over real output growth predicts higher medium-run inflation across regimes, with weaker coefficients only where credible nominal anchors are present.
For monetary sovereigns with floating exchange rates and debt in domestic currency, high public-debt ratios do not predict inflation or default absent real-resource or external-balance stress.
Real effective exchange-rate appreciation predicts lower export product variety and weaker goods-export growth over the next 2 years.
Infant-industry protection works when tariffs are temporary and followed by export-share gains; persistent tariffs without export discipline predict lower consumption growth and no high-tech export upgrading.
Tariff reductions increase consumption and export variety in high-rule-of-law and high-human-capital countries, but generate weak or negative medium-run growth in low-capacity countries with shallow finance.
Countries with both higher domestic food-production growth and higher food-trade openness have smaller food-price and poverty spikes after global commodity-price shocks.
High-tech export shares generate stronger GDP and TFP growth when export concentration is low.
Mission-oriented industrial policy raises high-tech export shares and resident patenting after five to ten years, with support only if gains exceed general R&D and education trends.
customs simplification and shorter border delays predict lower trade costs and faster small-exporter growth than tariff cuts alone.
tighter FDI restrictions predict slower adoption of foreign technology and weaker productivity convergence in tradable sectors.
durable tariff reductions predict lower tradable-goods prices and higher real household consumption, especially for lower-income households with high tradable basket shares.
Higher trade openness raises short-run unemployment volatility but lowers average unemployment in flexible or high-capacity labour markets.
Tertiary attainment growth predicts higher high-tech export shares after 3-5 years, conditional on income and trade openness.
More diversified export baskets predict smaller export and GDP contractions during global downturns.
Higher food import tariffs predict higher food-price inflation and worse poverty outcomes, especially in food-import-dependent countries.
Tariff reductions predict greater import product variety and higher private consumption per capita over 3-year windows.
Higher tariff protection does not predict later high-tech export upgrading unless governance quality is high.
Output or energy-use contractions do not have to reduce basic-needs outcomes when health, education, and food-security institutions are protected; refuted if contractions reliably worsen mortality, schooling, or pover...
Ranked by axis-overlap score. These are hypotheses already in the library whose tests speak to the axes this school's predictions live on, regardless of whether the school explicitly cited them.
To be populated as linked hypotheses are run. Status as of Phase 0: three monetary hypotheses pre-registered, no runs yet.
These are claims explicitly excluded from testing (contested in mainstream literature or beyond what available data can identify). Excluding them sharpens what remains.