IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jpolec/v100y1992i6p1257-72.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Are All Economic Hypotheses False?

Author

Listed:
  • De Long, J Bradford
  • Lang, Kevin

Abstract

The authors develop an estimator that allows them to calculate an upper bound to the fraction of unrejected null hypotheses tested in economics journal articles that are in fact true. Their point estimate is that none of the unrejected nulls in their sample is true. The authors reject the hypothesis that more than one-third are true. They consider three explanations for this finding: that all null hypotheses are mere approximations, that data-mining biases reported standard errors downward, and that journals tend to publish papers that fail to reject their null hypotheses only when the they are likely to be false. Copyright 1992 by University of Chicago Press.

Suggested Citation

  • De Long, J Bradford & Lang, Kevin, 1992. "Are All Economic Hypotheses False?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(6), pages 1257-1272, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jpolec:v:100:y:1992:i:6:p:1257-72
    DOI: 10.1086/261860
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/261860
    File Function: full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers. See http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JPE for details.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/261860?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christiano, Lawrence J. & Eichenbaum, Martin, 1990. "Unit roots in real GNP: Do we know, and do we care?," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 7-61, January.
    2. Hendry, David F, 1980. "Econometrics-Alchemy or Science?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 47(188), pages 387-406, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. John Y. Campbell & Pierre Perron, 1991. "Pitfalls and Opportunities: What Macroeconomists Should Know about Unit Roots," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1991, Volume 6, pages 141-220, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. David F. Hendry, 2013. "Econometric Modelling: The ‘Consumption Function’ In Retrospect," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 60(5), pages 495-522, November.
    3. Eckhard Hein & Christian Schoder, 2011. "Interest rates, distribution and capital accumulation -- A post-Kaleckian perspective on the US and Germany," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(6), pages 693-723, November.
    4. R Burger & S du Plessis, 2011. "Examining the Robustness of Competing Explanations of Slow Growth in African Countries," Studies in Economics and Econometrics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(3), pages 21-47, December.
    5. Quah, Danny, 1992. "The Relative Importance of Permanent and Transitory Components: Identification and Some Theoretical Bounds," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(1), pages 107-118, January.
    6. Diebold, Francis X & Kilian, Lutz, 2000. "Unit-Root Tests Are Useful for Selecting Forecasting Models," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 18(3), pages 265-273, July.
    7. Anderson, Richard G. & Hoffman, Dennis L. & Rasche, Robert H., 2002. "A vector error-correction forecasting model of the US economy," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 569-598, December.
    8. Christina D. Romer & David H. Romer, 1994. "What Ends Recessions?," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1994, Volume 9, pages 13-80, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Jungbin Hwang & Gonzalo Valdés, 2020. "Low Frequency Cointegrating Regression in the Presence of Local to Unity Regressors and Unknown Form of Serial Dependence," Working papers 2020-03, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics, revised Aug 2020.
    10. Muellbauer, John & Nunziata, Luca, 2001. "Credit, the Stock Market and Oil: Forecasting US GDP," CEPR Discussion Papers 2906, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Eric Swanson, 2015. "A Macroeconomic Model of Equities and Real, Nominal, and Defaultable Debt," 2015 Meeting Papers 273, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    12. Maurer, Rainer, 1995. "Is economic growth a random walk?," Kiel Working Papers 677, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    13. Wheeler, Sarah Ann, 2006. "The Influence of Market and Agricultural Policy Signals on the Level of Organic Farming," 2006 Annual Meeting, August 12-18, 2006, Queensland, Australia 25333, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    14. Burlig, Fiona, 2018. "Improving transparency in observational social science research: A pre-analysis plan approach," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 56-60.
    15. Mudit Kulsreshtha & Barnali Nag, 2000. "Structure and dynamics of non-suburban passenger travel demand in Indian railways," Transportation, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 221-241, May.
    16. Davood Manzoor & Sajjad Seiflou, 2011. "Are crude Oil, Gas and Coal Prices Cointegrated?," Iranian Economic Review (IER), Faculty of Economics,University of Tehran.Tehran,Iran, vol. 16(1), pages 29-51, winter.
    17. Rómulo Chumacero & Jorge Quiroz, 1996. "La Tasa Natural de Crecimiento de la Economía Chilena: 1985-1996," Latin American Journal of Economics-formerly Cuadernos de Economía, Instituto de Economía. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile., vol. 33(100), pages 453-472.
    18. Murray, Christian J. & Nelson, Charles R., 2000. "The uncertain trend in U.S. GDP," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 79-95, August.
    19. Renelt, David, 1991. "Economic growth : a review of the theoretical and empirical literature," Policy Research Working Paper Series 678, The World Bank.
    20. Adrian C. Darnell, 1994. "A Dictionary Of Econometrics," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 118.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ucp:jpolec:v:100:y:1992:i:6:p:1257-72. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JPE .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.