Providing access to the data is a prerequisite for replication of empirical analysis. Unfortunately, this access is not always granted to everyone (see here, and here).  There is evidence that some of this may be due to concerns about requestors’ qualifications (see here).

In two recent papers, we investigated how willingness to share depended on the identity of the requestor. In a paper entitled, “(Un)available upon request: field experiment on researchers’ willingness to share supplementary materials”,  Ernesto Reuben and I  found that only 44% of economists were willing to share supplementary research materials of a published study they had promised to send “upon request”.  This number was slightly higher if the request came from a high prestigious university rather than one that was less prestigious. 

In “Gender, beauty and support networks in academia: evidence from a field experiment (Study 1)”, Magdalena Smyk and I asked experimental economists to share data they used in their published paper. The focus in this experiment was the role of gender: half the requests were sent by a female student, the other half by a male. Overall compliance rate was 34.7%, with no gender effect.

The fact that requestor’s identity matters little is good news of course, as it suggests a roughly level playing field. However, while compliance rates in economics are higher than many other disciplines (see here and here and here), there is still much room for improvement.

Michal Krawczyk is an Assistant Professor of Economic Sciences at the University of Warsaw, Poland.

REFERENCES

Krawczyk, M., & Reuben, E. (2012). (Un) Available upon Request: Field Experiment on Researchers’ Willingness to Share Supplementary Materials.Accountability in research, 19(3), 175-186.

Krawczyk, M., & Smyk, M. (2015). Gender, beauty and support networks in academia: evidence from a field experiment (No. 2015-43).