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Business Research for Business Leaders
10 Dec 2019Working Paper Summaries

A Journal-Based Replication of 'Being Chosen to Lead'

by Erik Snowberg, Allan Drazen, Anna Dreber, and Erkut Y. Ozbay
Attempts to replicate experimental findings in economics and other disciplines have had a disappointing track record. This paper proposes and shows proof-of-concept for one way to ensure replication: contracting by a journal after a study is accepted for publication, but (ideally) before the actual publication occurs.

Author Abstract

Recent large-scale replications of social science experiments provide important information on the reliability of experimental research. Unfortunately, there exist no mechanisms to ensure replications are done. We propose such a mechanism: journal-based replication, in which the publishing journal contracts for a replication between acceptance and publication. We discuss what we learned from a proof-of-concept journal-based replication at the Journal of Public Economics. Our experience indicates that journal-based replication would be relatively straightforward to implement for laboratory experiments.

Paper Information

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