IESET.
Hypotheses·housing·bis_credit_gap_house_price_reversal_panel

In BIS country-quarter panels, an elevated credit-to-GDP gap predicts a subsequent real residential property-price reversal.

A credit boom should leave housing markets fragile enough that, after country fixed effects and common calendar-year shocks, high-gap quarters are followed by materially weaker three-year real house-price growth.

PARTIALengine/runs/bis_credit_gap_house_price_reversal_panel

PARTIAL — coef=-4.001e-16, p=9.19e-22; effect magnitude effectively zero

confidence cueThe result is useful, but not decisive. Treat it as a clue, not a settled conclusion.

policy briefMixed or noisy

In ordinary language

Does the housing rule being tested make homes easier to build, rent, or afford, or does it quietly reduce supply and push costs elsewhere?

plain answer

The evidence is suggestive but not decisive. coef=-4.001e-16, p=9.19e-22; effect magnitude effectively zero

why it matters

Housing policy affects rents, mobility, household budgets, and construction. The test looks for measurable effects rather than relying on slogans.

how the test works

It compares 20 country or place units from 1970 to 2025, using a panel fe design, with fixed effects for country and year.

what was measured
What changed
  • High credit gap
What we checked
  • Fwd real house price growth 12q
what this does not prove

A single test is not the whole truth. It narrows the claim under a specific sample, time period, and method. Strong policy conclusions need the pattern to survive nearby tests, alternative data, and serious objections.

verification

4 input datasets, 0 unresolved missing series, provenance status: reproducible hash verified.

Results

engine/runs/bis_credit_gap_house_price_reversal_panel
1007550250197019982025USAGBRCANAUSESPIRLDNK
illustrative sketch · run pending
No coefficients yet. When the model fires, this chart will show fwd_real_house_price_growth_12q across 20 sampled countries over 1970–2025.
The shapes above are stylised — none of the lines are real data.
Placeholder for bis_credit_gap_house_price_reversal_panel. Published chart will be generated from engine/runs/bis_credit_gap_house_price_reversal_panel/chart_data.json.

Who has skin in the game — schools predicting on this

1 school list this hypothesis as a test of their position. The chips below are school-level scoreboard outcomes, not a second hypothesis verdict.

hypothesis verdict vs scoreboard outcome

The banner verdict judges this hypothesis as written. The scoreboard asks whether each school's polarity-corrected prediction was right. Raw status is not a school win: SUPPORTED supports schools that needed SUPPORTED, but refutes schools that needed REFUTED.

New Keynesian (mainstream synthesis)wins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-call

Pre-registration

pre-registered
first-spec commit c86e9cf · 2026-05-02T16:36:30Z
run generated · 2026-06-29T17:53:11Z

In BIS country-quarter panels, an elevated credit-to-GDP gap predicts a subsequent real residential property-price reversal. A credit boom should leave housing markets fragile enough that, after country fixed effects and common calendar-year shocks, high-gap quarters are followed by materially weaker three-year real house-price growth.

Falsification criterion — what would disprove this

set before the run · honoured after

This hypothesis is considered falsified if:

Falsified if high BIS credit-gap quarters do not predict materially weaker subsequent real house-price growth after fixed effects, or if the raw high-gap contrast is not economically negative.

formal test & threshold
test:      bis_credit_gap_house_price_reversal_panel
threshold: Supported only if coefficient(high_credit_gap) <= -3.0 percentage points with cluster-robust p <= 0.05, raw high-minus-normal mean outcome <= -3.0 percentage points, at least 600 observations, and at least 20 countries. Partial if exactly one of the regression or raw contrast gates clears.

Method

Template
panel_fe
Fixed effects
country, year
Clustering
country
Sample
20 countries · 1970 – 2025
Evidence type
associational

Country-quarter panel. Threshold is deliberately high and known before execution: credit gap >= 10 percentage points. The outcome is forward, so the contemporaneous high-gap marker cannot mechanically include the reversal window.

Data

VariableSourceTransform
fwd_real_house_price_growth_12q
outcome
bis:WS_SPPtier 2
100 * log(real_index_t+12 / real_index_t)
high_credit_gap
treatment
bis:WS_CREDIT_GAPtier 2
indicator(CG_DTYPE=C >= 10 percentage points)
credit_gap
control
bis:WS_CREDIT_GAPtier 2
level, CG_DTYPE=C
lag_real_house_price_growth_8q
control
bis:WS_SPPtier 2
100 * log(real_index_t / real_index_t-8)

● ready  · ● pending  · ● reconstruct-needed

Detailed result card

Result card — bis_credit_gap_house_price_reversal_panel

Verdict: PARTIAL — coef=-4.001e-16, p=9.19e-22; effect magnitude effectively zero

Pre-registration

  • Claim: In BIS country-quarter panels, an elevated credit-to-GDP gap predicts a subsequent real residential property-price reversal. A credit boom should leave housing markets fragile enough that, after country fixed effects and common calendar-year shocks, high-gap quarters are followed by materially weaker three-year real house-price growth.
  • Falsification rule: Falsified if high BIS credit-gap quarters do not predict materially weaker subsequent real house-price growth after fixed effects, or if the raw high-gap contrast is not economically negative.
  • Falsification test: bis_credit_gap_house_price_reversal_panel

Estimate

  • Method: statsmodels OLS FE fallback (linearmodels failed: exog does not have full column rank. If you wish to proceed with model estimation irrespective of the numerical accuracy of coefficient estimates, you can set check_rank=False.)
  • Coefficient (treatment): -4.001e-16
  • Std error: 4.174e-17
  • p-value: 9.19e-22
  • Observations: 1015, countries: 20
  • Within R²: 1
  • Fixed effects: entity=True, time=True
  • Clustering: country

Variables resolved

  • bis:WS_SPP → fwd_real_house_price_growth_12q (outcome, publisher=bis, n=2272)
  • bis:WS_CREDIT_GAP → high_credit_gap (treatment, publisher=bis, n=1914)
  • bis:WS_CREDIT_GAP → credit_gap (controls, publisher=bis, n=1914)
  • bis:WS_SPP → lag_real_house_price_growth_8q (controls, publisher=bis, n=2272)

Generated by scripts/run_panel_fe.py at 2026-06-29T17:53:11+00:00

Strongest opposing argument

Every hypothesis ships with its charitable opposing argument. The framework earns credibility by handling objections at their strongest, not weakest.

Notes

Runnable via engine/runs/bis_credit_gap_house_price_reversal_panel/replication.py. Uses only pinned BIS vintages already on disk.

Authored framework. Read the transparency note.