Persuasion Bias in Science: Can Economics Help?

Alfredo Di Tillio, Marco Ottaviani and Peter Sørensen

Economic Journal, 2017, vol. 127, issue 605, F266-F304

Abstract: We investigate the impact of conflicts of interests on randomised controlled trials in a game‐theoretic framework. A researcher seeks to persuade an evaluator that the causal effect of a treatment outweighs its cost, to justify acceptance. The researcher can use private information to manipulate the experiment in three alternative ways: (i) sampling subjects based on their treatment effect, (ii) assigning subjects to treatment based on their baseline outcome, or (iii) selectively reporting experimental outcomes. The resulting biases have different welfare implications: for sufficiently high acceptance cost, in our binary illustration the evaluator loses in cases (i) and (iii) but benefits in case (ii).

Date: 2017
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https://doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12515

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Working Paper: Persuasion Bias in Science: Can Economics Help? (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:econjl:v:127:y:2017:i:605:p:f266-f304

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