A Bounded World: A Preregistered Test of RAYOBETH Theory Across Natural and Social Generative Systems

Resource economics assumes that stocks are bounded, while growth theory allows explosive growth. RAYOBETH Theory states when each holds: a stock can explode only if it is reflexive, reinvesting its output in a generator with at least one nonrival input. This article reports the first preregistered test of that claim, in an atlas of 60 natural and social systems in six domains, coded blind for reflexivity and estimated with a frozen, validated package. Of 41 systems that passed the audit, the generative elasticity was estimable for 30. No non reflexive system had an elasticity reliably above one under any coding, sample or control, and their pooled elasticity was 0.79 (95% interval 0.67 to 0.91), although 13 of 21 intervals included one. The reflexivity conjecture failed its registered test, the duality law was barely testable, and the theory’s forecasts did not beat the Gompertz curve.