"Zoo" of empirical results: Quantitative research and accumulation of knowledge in social sciences

The last decade became a period of an empirical turn in economics and in many other social sciences, i. e., increasing role of quantitative empirical research and declining importance of big paradigms and research programs. What does, however, the increase of the number of empirical studies mean for the overall accumulation of knowledge about societies? Fundamentally, generalizable results are frequently seen as an important advantage of the quantitative methods. However, our article shows that standard studies within the framework of the empirical turn hardly communicate with each other, build upon each other or try to refute each other. References to other papers play a more or less symbolic role. Instead of a systematic worldview a sort of a 'zoo' of numerous individual case studies emerges, being hardly connected to each other. This development, however, should not necessarily be perceived as evidence of a crisis in social sciences.