Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/265697 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 15476
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are increasingly prominent in economics, with pre-registration and pre-analysis plans (PAPs) promoted as important in ensuring the credibility of findings. We investigate whether these tools reduce the extent of p-hacking and publication bias by collecting and studying the universe of test statistics, 15,992 in total, from RCTs published in 15 leading economics journals from 2018 through 2021. In our primary analysis, we find no meaningful difference in the distribution of test statistics from pre-registered studies, compared to their non-pre-registered counterparts. However, pre-registerd studies that have a complete PAP are significantly less p-hacked. This results point to the importance of PAPs, rather than pre-registration in itself, in ensuring credibility.
Subjects: 
pre-analysis plan
pre-registration
p-hacking
publication bias
research credibility
JEL: 
B41
C13
C40
C93
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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