IESET.
Policies·uk_truss_mini_budget_2022

Truss mini-budget (Sep 2022)

GBR·2022 2022·enacted 2022-09-23candidate
movestax progressivityspending level

What the policy did

Unfunded tax cuts (~£45bn) combined with large energy-price cap spending, without OBR forecast. Markets repriced gilts within days; pension-fund LDI collapse required BoE intervention. Most measures reversed within weeks; Truss resigned 49 days after taking office. The framework codes this as a market-oriented policy package (tax cuts + supply-side framing) whose execution failed at implementation because of fiscal credibility loss, not because the content itself was economically unreasonable. A genuine case for distinguishing POLICY from PROCESS.

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
tax progressivity
fiscal.tax_progressivity
Progressivity of the personal income tax schedule, including top marginal rates, bracket spread, and targeted credits (EITC-equivalents).
decreased · moderate
less progressive (flatter rates, compression, smaller credits)
Proposed 45p abolition + basic rate cut + corporate tax reversal. Mostly reversed within weeks.
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 · strong
higher spending share
£60bn+ energy price guarantee; offsetting the tax cuts on the spending side.

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?".

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
Countries in the top quartile of Heritage lower-tax-burden score in 2024 have lower latest-available extreme-poverty headcount than bottom-quartile countries, consistent with free-market country policy regimes outperforming less market-oriented regimes on this outcome.
heritage_tax_burden_extreme_poverty_current_gapinferred
viafiscal.tax_progressivityfiscal.spending_level
PARTIAL — gap sign/magnitude not decisive (diff=1.296, p=0.7399)
partial
Conditional on latest real GDP per capita and broad Heritage region, countries with higher Heritage lower-tax-burden score in 2024 have lower latest-available extreme-poverty headcount.
heritage_tax_burden_extreme_poverty_income_region_robustnessinferred
viafiscal.tax_progressivityfiscal.spending_level
PARTIAL — controlled coefficient not decisive (coef=-1.28, p=0.2307)
partial
Countries in the top quartile of Heritage lower-tax-burden score 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_tax_burden_account_ownership_current_gapinferred
viafiscal.tax_progressivityfiscal.spending_level
REFUTED — top-vs-bottom gap has opposite sign and Welch p=2.887e-05
refuted
Conditional on latest real GDP per capita and broad Heritage region, countries with higher Heritage lower-tax-burden score in 2024 have higher latest-available account ownership.
heritage_tax_burden_account_ownership_income_region_robustnessinferred
viafiscal.tax_progressivityfiscal.spending_level
REFUTED — controlled market-score coefficient has opposite sign and p=0.01161
refuted
Countries in the top quartile of Heritage lower-tax-burden score in 2024 have higher latest-available electricity access than bottom-quartile countries, consistent with free-market country policy regimes outperforming less market-oriented regimes on this outcome.
heritage_tax_burden_electricity_access_current_gapinferred
viafiscal.tax_progressivityfiscal.spending_level
PARTIAL — gap sign/magnitude not decisive (diff=4.491, p=0.2842)
partial
Conditional on latest real GDP per capita and broad Heritage region, countries with higher Heritage lower-tax-burden score in 2024 have higher latest-available electricity access.
heritage_tax_burden_electricity_access_income_region_robustnessinferred
viafiscal.tax_progressivityfiscal.spending_level
PARTIAL — controlled coefficient not decisive (coef=1.457, p=0.1656)
partial
Countries in the top quartile of Heritage lower-tax-burden score in 2024 have higher latest-available employment rate than bottom-quartile countries, consistent with free-market country policy regimes outperforming less market-oriented regimes on this outcome.
heritage_tax_burden_employment_rate_current_gapinferred
viafiscal.tax_progressivityfiscal.spending_level
PARTIAL — gap sign/magnitude not decisive (diff=0.5323, p=0.8257)
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.

References

Notes

Migrated from movements/uk_truss_mini_budget_2022.yaml (action=CONVERT). This entity is a single policy/legislation, not a coalition era; reclassified to policies/. Original movement file deleted.