Publication Bias Reconsidered

Lee Sigelman

Political Analysis, 1999, vol. 8, issue 2, 201-210

Abstract: In political science and many other disciplines, statistically significant results—rejections of the null hypothesis—are achieved more frequently in published than in unpublished studies. Such “publication bias” is generally seen as the consequence of a widespread prejudice against statistically nonsignificant results. I argue that evidence of such a prejudice is in surprisingly short supply and that publication bias can occur even in the absence of such a prejudice and even if the review process is functioning perfectly. More importantly, publication bias may stem from dutiful application of standards of scientific inquiry rather than from irrational prejudice.

Date: 1999
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

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:cup:polals:v:8:y:1999:i:02:p:201-210_00

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Political Analysis from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().