The DOI matches its Crossref record; 79 of the 79 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
ARE ALL ECONOMIC FACTS GREATLY EXAGGERATED? THEORY COMPETITION AND SELECTIVITY
Abstract
Abstract..There is growing concern and mounting evidence of selectivity in empirical economics. Most empirical economic literatures have a truncated distribution of results. The aim of this paper is to explore the link between publication selectivity and theory contests. This link is confirmed through the analysis of 87 distinct empirical economics literatures, involving more than three and a half thousand separate empirical studies, using objective measures of both selectivity and contests. Our meta–meta‐analysis shows that publication selection is widespread, but not universal. It distorts scientific inference with potentially adverse effects on policy making, but competition and debate between rival theories reduces this selectivity and thereby improves economic inference.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Bias in meta-analysis detected by a simple, graphical test
Egger, M., Smith, G. D., Schneider, M., & Minder, C. (1997) · BMJ · doi:10.1136/bmj.315.7109.629 · Cited by 56,722
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Kuhn, T. S., & Schlegel, R. (1963) · Physics Today · doi:10.1063/1.3050879 · Cited by 35,538
Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance
North, D. C. (1990) · doi:10.1017/cbo9780511808678 · Cited by 32,691
Sample Selection Bias as a Specification Error
Heckman, J. J. (1979) · Econometrica · doi:10.2307/1912352 · Cited by 28,779
Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance
Munger, M. C., & North, D. C. (1991) · Southern Economic Journal · doi:10.2307/1060065 · Cited by 24,871
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: 50th Anniversary Edition
Kuhn, T. S., & Hacking, I. (2012) · doi:10.7208/chicago/9780226458144.001.0001 · Cited by 21,170
Witten, I. H. (2008) · Cited by 9,143
Are Government Bonds Net Wealth?
Barro, R. J. (1974) · Journal of Political Economy · doi:10.1086/260266 · Cited by 5,994
Political Order in Changing Societies.
Zolberg, A. R., & Huntington, S. P. (1969) · Midwest Journal of Political Science · doi:10.2307/2110237 · Cited by 5,753
Methods of Meta-Analysis: Correcting Error and Bias in Research Findings
Schmidt, F. L., & Hunter, J. E. (2015) · doi:10.4135/9781483398105 · Cited by 5,542
Cited by
Stanley, T. D., & Doucouliagos, H. (2014) · Research Synthesis Methods · doi:10.1002/jrsm.1095 · Cited by 916
Self-citationThe Power of Bias in Economics Research
Ioannidis, J. P. A., Stanley, T. D., & Doucouliagos, H. (2017) · The Economic Journal · doi:10.1111/ecoj.12461 · Cited by 634
Self-citationPublication Selection Bias in Minimum‐Wage Research? A Meta‐Regression Analysis
Doucouliagos, H., & Stanley, T. D. (2009) · British Journal of Industrial Relations · doi:10.1111/j.1467-8543.2009.00723.x · Cited by 507
Self-citationStar Wars: The Empirics Strike Back
Brodeur, A., Lé, M., Sangnier, M., & Zylberberg, Y. (2016) · American Economic Journal: Applied Economics · doi:10.1257/app.20150044 · Cited by 430
Determinants of Horizontal Spillovers from FDI: Evidence from a Large Meta-Analysis
Iršová, Z., & Havránek, T. (2013) · World Development · doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2012.07.001 · Cited by 361
Metadata
- Authors
- Doucouliagos, C., & Stanley, T. D.
- Venue
- Journal of Economic Surveys
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2011-10-17
- Volume
- 27
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 316-339
- ISSN
- 0950-0804 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-6419
- OpenAlex
- W1832234492
- Cited by
- 276
- References
- 79
- FWCI
- 13.51
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: ARE ALL ECONOMIC FACTS GREATLY EXAGGERATED? THEORY COMPETITION AND SELECTIVITY. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1111/j.1467-6419.2011.00706.x
- The paper
- Doucouliagos, C., & Stanley, T. D. (2013). ARE ALL ECONOMIC FACTS GREATLY EXAGGERATED? THEORY COMPETITION AND SELECTIVITY. Journal of Economic Surveys. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6419.2011.00706.x
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.