Publication Bias and Editorial Statement on Negative Findings

Arbeitspapier

In February 2015, the editors of eight health economics journals sent out an editorial statement which aims to reduce the extent of specification searching and reminds referees to accept studies that: "have potential scientific and publication merit regardless of whether such studies' empirical findings do or do not reject null hypotheses". Guided by a pre-analysis, we test whether the editorial statement decreased the extent of publication bias. Our differences-in-differences estimates suggest that the statement decreased the proportion of tests rejecting the null hypothesis by 18 percentage points. Our findings suggest that incentives may be aligned to promote more transparent research.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 12493

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Role of Economics; Role of Economists; Market for Economists ; Estimation: General ; Operations Research; Statistical Decision Theory ; Health: General
• Subject: research in economics ; pre-analysis plan ; specification searching ; publication bias ; incentives to publish

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Blanco-Perez, Cristina ; Brodeur, Abel
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2019

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/207319
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET