Transparency, Reproducibility, and the Credibility of Economics Research

There is growing interest in enhancing research transparency and reproducibility in economics and other scientific fields. We survey existing work on these topics within economics, and discuss the evidence suggesting that publication bias, inability to replicate, and specification searching remain widespread in the discipline. We next discuss recent progress in this area, including through improved research design, study registration and pre-analysis plans, disclosure standards, and open sharing of data and materials, drawing on experiences in both economics and other social sciences. We discuss areas where consensus is emerging on new practices, as well as approaches that remain controversial, and speculate about the most effective ways to make economics research more credible in the future.

经济学及其他科学领域的研究透明度和可重复性正日益受到广泛关注。本文对经济学领域内关于这些主题的现有研究进行了综述，并探讨了表明出版偏差、难以复现和参数搜索依然普遍存在的证据。随后，本文讨论了该领域近期的进展，包括通过改进研究设计、研究注册和预分析计划、披露标准以及数据与材料的开放共享等方面，借鉴了经济学及其他社会科学领域的经验。我们讨论了在新的实践方法上正在形成共识的领域，以及仍存在争议的方法，并推测了未来如何使经济学研究更具可信度的最有效途径。