Vu chez New Economist :

[...] The authors attempted to replicate the results from 138 empirical articles in the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review. Of the 138 articles, 29 employed software they did not have or used proprietary data, and were excluded. Of the remaining 117, they were able to replicate only 9 of them: a lousy 8 per cent. In 2001 the National Research Council wrote that:

The ability to replicate a study is typically the gold standard by which the reliability of scientific claims are judged.

Judging by these results economics would not even meet a bronze standard, let alone gold. Many economists think that most articles are replicable, and hence the issue is not a matter for concern. They are wrong.

McCullough et al argue that the incentives for authors to comply with replication policies (or journal archives) are weak; many don't comply, and there are seldom any sanctions against them. The honour system of most journals simply don't work. They put the case for mandatory archiving of both data and program code: [...]

Lire les papiers cités, en particulier Do Economics Journal Archives Promote Replicable Research?.

Edifiant, non ?

Pub : bientot sur ce blog un compte rendu de mes aventures pour savoir pourquoi les données de prix brutes qui servent à calculer l'inflation sont gardées secrêtes, j'ai une réponse complète du BLS, et la discussion est en cours avec l'INSEE. (Petite) surprise, aucun des économistes chez qui je suis allé troller ne donne la vraie raison pour le BLS (c'est même plutot le contresens ...).