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on Sociology of Economics |
| By: | Ale, Sonia; Islam, Md Shafiqul; Lusher, Lester; Osman, Huda; Stenstrom, Jacob |
| Abstract: | Random sampling yields unbiased estimates, yet sampling variation alone can produce incorrect conclusions. Using a setting where repeated draws from the same data-generating process are observable, we replicate findings from 24 papers in top economics journals and re-estimate each result using 40 independent resamples. Across 3, 640 resampled results, t-statistics shrink by 31%, frequently leading to lost significance. Proxies for researcher degrees of freedom and sampling noise predict reduced significance. Our exercise provides novel evidence quantifying the effect of sampling variability on empirical research and highlights how statistical evidence can vary even when holding research design fixed. |
| Keywords: | sampling variation, statistical significance, reproducibility, publication bias, Google Trends |
| JEL: | C12 C18 C80 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:i4rdps:318 |
| By: | Wang, Weichen; Shi, Chengchun |
| JEL: | C1 |
| Date: | 2026–08–19 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:130008 |
| By: | Anna Schlaack; Christian Zimmermann |
| Abstract: | RePEc is an initiative created by economists for economists in 1997. It functions primarily as a bibliographic tool, but it also collects various linked metadata about economists, their institutions, and their impact. Thus, a labor economist may be interested in RePEc beyond literature searches and tracking—namely, as a dataset describing a profession, its members, and their output. This essay describes RePEc’s origins and history, the many facets of its data and how the data can be accessed. It also provides some examples of scholarly studies leveraging RePEc data that could be of interest to labor economists and lead them to other uses of RePEc data. |
| Keywords: | RePEc; dataset; sociology of economics; economics profession |
| JEL: | A11 A14 J44 J45 |
| Date: | 2026–08–26 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedlwp:103698 |
| By: | Cumming, Douglas |
| Abstract: | Journal-level citation metrics have become the price system of academic science. They allocate prestige, steer submissions, anchor tenure and promotion, drive institutional rankings, and, through subscription demand and article-processing charges, convert directly into publisher revenue. This Article argues that when a single dominant firm organizes many journals under common control, coordinated conduct inflating those metrics can generate large private gains while inflicting a diffuse public harm that United States law, as currently configured, reaches poorly. The Article does not conclude that such conduct is beyond legal reach. It concludes that the reach is jurisdictional and structural: the doctrines best suited to the harm sit outside the forum in which the leading case was brought. Using a documented episode involving a cluster of Elsevier finance journals as its case study, the Article audits the governing doctrine. Antitrust, after the January 2026 dismissal of Uddin v. Elsevier, confronts a relevant-market problem, an intra-enterprise barrier under Copperweld, and a standing bottleneck under Illinois Brick, which together leave metric manipulation poorly served under Section 1. Two routes remain open: an inconsistency in the publisher's own litigation positions on editorial control, bearing directly on the single-entity premise, and the availability of Section 2 and of abuse-of-dominance liability abroad. Defamation law, governed by Milkovich and the scientific-debate abstention of ONY, very likely does not reach a publisher's expression-of-concern notice. Contract, tortious-interference, and retaliation theories fare no better. The Article states the publisher's strongest defenses and identifies what survives them. It shows that the recent dismissal rests on a view of concerted action in tension with the circuit's own precedent, and argues that the publisher's prolonged inaction, despite notice that an editor was handling his own papers and that citation stacking was underway, presents a case of willful blindness bearing on culpability and pretext. Comparative analysis shows EU and UK abuse-of-dominance law to be a materially more hospitable forum than U.S. antitrust, because the single-firm character of the conduct is fatal under the Sherman Act but not under Article 102 TFEU. Canada has moved furthest: following reforms in force from June 2025, its Competition Act combines single-firm abuse-of-dominance liability with public-interest standing and a disgorgement remedy measured by the defendant's gain rather than any plaintiff's loss, removing at once the barriers of concerted action, standing, and provable individualized loss that defeat the American claim. The Article closes with a reform program centered on metric-integrity trigger duties, coordination and pricing transparency, evenhanded conflict standards, and protection for scholars who document publisher conduct. |
| Date: | 2026–08–31 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:lawarc:ek6ty_v1 |
| By: | Yong Cai; Agathe Pernoud; Boli Xu |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the effects of p-hacking on the bias of published estimates when papers with statistically significant results are selectively published. We show that fast p-hacking---actions that lead to large changes in p-values---always exacerbates the bias from selective publication. On the other hand, slow p-hacking---actions that lead to small changes in p-values---exacerbates bias when selection is weak, but mitigates it when selection is strong. In a model featuring both types of p-hacking, we show that a normality assumption identifies the true distribution of effects as well as the counterfactual mean that would obtain under selective publication without p-hacking. Applying the model to meta-analyses on the effects of behavioral nudges and development aid, we find suggestive evidence that both mitigation and exacerbation can arise in practice. |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2609.05372 |