The Null Result Penalty

Felix Chopra, Ingar Haaland, Christopher Roth and Andreas Stegmann

The Economic Journal, 2024, vol. 134, issue 657, 193-219

Abstract: We examine how the evaluation of research studies in economics depends on whether a study yielded a null result. Studies with null results are perceived to be less publishable, of lower quality, less important and less precisely estimated than studies with large and statistically significant results, even when holding constant all other study features, including the sample size and the precision of the estimates. The null result penalty is of similar magnitude among PhD students and journal editors. The penalty is larger when experts predict a large effect and when statistical uncertainty is communicated with p-values rather than standard errors. Our findings highlight the value of a pre-result review.

Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/ej/uead060 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Journal Article: The Null Result Penalty (2023)
Working Paper: The Null Result Penalty (2022)
Working Paper: The Null Result Penalty (2022)
Working Paper: The Null Result Penalty (2022)
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:oup:econjl:v:134:y:2024:i:657:p:193-219.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

The Economic Journal is currently edited by Francesco Lippi

More articles in The Economic Journal from Royal Economic Society Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press () and ().