Star Wars: The Empirics Strike Back
Journal article: Using 50,000 tests published in the AER, JPE, and QJE, we identify a residual in the distribution of tests that cannot be explained solely by journals favoring rejection of the null hypothesis. We observe a two-humped camel shape with missing p-values between 0.25 and 0.10 that can be retrieved just after the 0.05 threshold and represent 10-20 percent of marginally rejected tests. Our interpretation is that researchers inflate the value of just-rejected tests by choosing "significant" specifications. We propose a method to measure this residual and describe how it varies by article and author characteristics.
Author(s)
Abel Brodeur, Mathias Lé, Marc Sangnier, Yanos Zylberberg
Journal
- American Economic Journal: Applied Economics
Date of publication
- 2016
Keywords JEL
Internal reference
- halshs-01158500
Pages
- 1-32
URL of the HAL notice
Version
- 1
Volume
- 8