Star Wars: The Empirics Strike Back

Abstract

Using 50,000 tests published in the AER, JPE, and QJE, we identify a residual in the distribution of tests that cannot be explained solely by journals favoring rejection of the null hypothesis. We observe a two-humped camel shape with missing p-values between 0.25 and 0.10 that can be retrieved just after the 0.05 threshold and represent 10–20 percent of marginally rejected tests. Our interpretation is that researchers inflate the value of just-rejected tests by choosing “significant” specifications. We propose a method to measure this residual and describe how it varies by article and author characteristics. (JEL A11, C13)