Category: GUEST BLOGS


REED: EiR* – What’s Supporting that Fixed Effects Estimate?

[* EiR = Econometrics in Replications, a feature of TRN that highlights useful econometrics procedures for re-analysing existing research.] NOTE: All the data and code  necessary to produce the results in the tables below are available at Harvard’s Dataverse: click…

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GAARDER & JIMENEZ: Replication Research on Financial Inclusion in Developing Countries

In support of recent efforts by social scientists to address the ‘reproducibility crisis’, the Journal of Development Effectiveness (JDEff) recently devoted a special issue on replication research studies in its last issue of 2019.  Most journals continue to favor new…

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REED: EiR* — Replications and DAGs

[* EiR = Econometrics in Replications, a feature of TRN that highlights useful econometrics procedures for re-analysing existing research.] In recent years, DAGs (Directed Acyclic Graphs) have received increased attention in the medical and social sciences as a tool for…

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FIALA: Is the Evidence for the Lack of Impact of Microfinance Just a Design Problem?

Microfinance is one of the most hotly debated interventions in developing countries over the last 20 years. These are generally small loans, often given to women with short repayment periods and high interest rates (though often much lower than local…

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TOL: Special Issue on Replication at Energy Economics

Replication is important. Many journals in economics, including Energy Economics, now insist on papers being published together with a replication package, and a few journals check that package prior to publication. This is a world apart from the common practice…

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GOODMAN: Ladies and Gentlemen, I Introduce to You, “Plausibility Limits”

Confidence intervals get top billing as the alternative to significance. But beware: confidence intervals rely on the same math as significance and share the same shortcominings. Confidence intervals don’t tell where the true effect lies even probabilistically. What they do…

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REED: EiR* – More on Heterogeneity in Two-Way Fixed Effects Models

[* EiR = Econometrics in Replications, a feature of TRN that highlights useful econometrics procedures for re-analysing existing research. The material for this blog is primarily drawn from the recent working paper “Difference-in-differences with variation in treatment timing” by Andrew…

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GOODMAN: What’s the True Effect Size? It Depends What You Think

What’s the true effect size? That’s my bottom line question when doing a study or reading a paper. I don’t expect an exact answer, of course. What I want is a probability distribution telling where the true effect size probably…

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PFEIFFER: Taking Replication Markets To a Whole New Level

Replication markets are prediction markets run in conjunction with systematic replication projects. We conducted such markets for the Replication Project: Psychology (RPP), Experimental Economics Replication Project (EERP), Social Science Replication Project (SSRP) and the Many Labs 2 Project (ML2). The…

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FIDLER & MODY: The repliCATS Bus – Where It’s Been, Where It’s Going

For several years now scientists—in at least some disciplines—have been concerned about low rates of replicability. As scientists in those fields, we worry about the development of cumulative knowledge, and about wasted research effort. An additional challenge is to consider…

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