"Zoo" of empirical results: Quantitative research and accumulation of knowledge in social sciences

A. Libman
Additional contact information
A. Libman: Free University of Berlin, Germany

Journal of the New Economic Association, 2024, vol. 65, issue 4, 178-194

Abstract: The last decade became a period of an empirical turn in economics and in many other social sciences, i. e., increasing role of quantitative empirical research and declining importance of big paradigms and research programs. What does, however, the increase of the number of empirical studies mean for the overall accumulation of knowledge about societies? Fundamentally, generalizable results are frequently seen as an important advantage of the quantitative methods. However, our article shows that standard studies within the framework of the empirical turn hardly communicate with each other, build upon each other or try to refute each other. References to other papers play a more or less symbolic role. Instead of a systematic worldview a sort of a 'zoo' of numerous individual case studies emerges, being hardly connected to each other. This development, however, should not necessarily be perceived as evidence of a crisis in social sciences.

Keywords: empirical research; quantitative methods; credibility revolution; replication; generalization of results (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A14 B41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.econorus.org/repec/journl/2024-65-178-194r.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nea:journl:y:2024:i:65:p:178-194

DOI: 10.31737/22212264_2024_4_178-194

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of the New Economic Association is currently edited by Victor Polterovich and Aleksandr Rubinshtein

More articles in Journal of the New Economic Association from New Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Alexey Tcharykov ().