IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_3246.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Cult of Statistical Significance

Author

Listed:
  • Walter Kraemer

Abstract

This article takes issue with a recent book by Ziliak and McCloskey (2008) of the same title. Ziliak and McCloskey argue that statistical significance testing is a barrier rather than a booster for empirical research in many fields and should therefore be abandoned altogether. The present article argues that this is good advice in some research areas but not in others. Taking all issues which have appeared so far of the German Economic Review and a recent epidemiological meta-analysis as examples, it shows that there has indeed been a lot of misleading work in the context of significance testing, and that at the same time many promising avenues for fruitfully employing statistical significance tests, disregarded by Ziliak and McCloskey, have not been used.

Suggested Citation

  • Walter Kraemer, 2010. "The Cult of Statistical Significance," CESifo Working Paper Series 3246, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_3246
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp3246.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kramer, Walter, et al, 1985. "Diagnostic Checking in Practice," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 67(1), pages 118-123, February.
    2. Inmaculada Martínez‐Zarzoso & Felicitas Nowak‐Lehmann D. & Stephan Klasen & Mario Larch, 2009. "Does German Development Aid Promote German Exports?," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 10(3), pages 317-338, August.
    3. Holtemöller Oliver & Schulz Rainer, 2010. "Investor Rationality and House Price Bubbles: Berlin and the German Reunification," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 11(4), pages 465-486, December.
    4. Oliver Holtemöller & Rainer Schulz, 2010. "Investor Rationality and House Price Bubbles: Berlin and the German Reunification," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 11(4), pages 465-486, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Thomas Mayer, 2012. "Ziliak and McClosky?s Criticisms of Significance Tests: A Damage Assessment," Working Papers 126, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.

    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. Holtemöller, Oliver & Lindner, Axel, 2018. "Die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung Sachsen-Anhalts seit 1990," IWH Discussion Papers 6/2018, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    2. Tomaso Duso & Claus Michelsen & Maximilian Schäfer & Kevin Ducbao Tran, 2021. "Airbnb and Rental Markets: Evidence from Berlin," Bristol Economics Discussion Papers 21/746, School of Economics, University of Bristol, UK.
    3. Projektgruppe Gemeinschaftsdiagnose, 2010. "The Recovery Continues - Considerable Risks Remain," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 63(08), pages 03-78, April.
    4. Dreher, Axel & Fuchs, Andreas & Langlotz, Sarah, 2019. "The effects of foreign aid on refugee flows," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 127-147.
    5. Bernard Hoekman & Anirudh Shingal, 2020. "Aid for trade and international transactions in goods and services," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 320-340, May.
    6. Kruse, Hendrik W. & Martínez-Zarzoso, Inma, 2016. "Transfers in the gravity equation: The case of foreign aid," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 288, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    7. Benjamin Jung, 2009. "Adjustment Dynamics of Bilateral Trade Flows: Theory and Evidence," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 145(IV), pages 421-442, December.
    8. Angelika J. Budjan & Andreas Fuchs, 2021. "Democracy and Aid Donorship," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 13(4), pages 217-238, November.
    9. Diekmann Andreas, 2011. "Are Most Published Research Findings False?," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 231(5-6), pages 628-635, October.
    10. Wacker, Konstantin M. & Großkurth, Philipp & Lakemann, Tabea, 2014. "Terms of Trade, Foreign Direct Investment, and Development: A Case of Intra-Asian “Kicking Away the Ladder”?," Working Papers on Regional Economic Integration 122, Asian Development Bank.
    11. Philipp H�hne & Birgit Meyer & Peter Nunnenkamp, 2014. "Who Benefits from Aid for Trade? Comparing the Effects on Recipient versus Donor Exports," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(9), pages 1275-1288, September.
    12. Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso & Felicitas Nowak-Lehmann D. & Stephan Klasen & Florian Johannsen, 2013. "Does German Development Aid Promote German Exports and German Employment? A Sectoral-Level Analysis," Ibero America Institute for Econ. Research (IAI) Discussion Papers 227, Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research, revised 18 Dec 2013.
    13. Oxana Babecká Kucharčuková & Jan Babecký & Martin Raiser, 2012. "Gravity Approach for Modelling International Trade in South-Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States: The Role of Geography, Policy and Institutions," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 277-301, April.
    14. Barthel, Fabian & Neumayer, Eric & Nunnenkamp, Peter & Selaya, Pablo, 2014. "Competition for Export Markets and the Allocation of Foreign Aid: The Role of Spatial Dependence among Donor Countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 350-365.
    15. Martínez-Zarzoso, Inmaculada & Nowak-Lehmann D., Felicitas & Klasen, Stephan, 2010. "The Economic Benefits of giving Aid in terms of Donors Exports," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Hannover 2010 28, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics.
    16. Ronald B. Davies & Stephan Klasen, 2019. "Darlings and Orphans: Interactions across Donors in International Aid," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 121(1), pages 243-277, January.
    17. Liu, Ailan & Tang, Bo, 2018. "US and China aid to Africa: Impact on the donor-recipient trade relations," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 46-65.
    18. Ronald B. Davies & Stephan Klasen, 2013. "Of Donor Coordination, Free-Riding, Darlings, and Orphans: The dependence of bilateral aid on other bilateral giving," Courant Research Centre: Poverty, Equity and Growth - Discussion Papers 137, Courant Research Centre PEG.
    19. Gabriel Felbermayr & Erdal Yalcin, 2016. "Involvement of German Companies in Africa," ifo Forschungsberichte, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 71.
    20. Felicitas Nowak-Lehmann & Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso & Dierk Herzer & Stephan Klasen & Adriana Cardozo, 2013. "Does foreign aid promote recipient exports to donor countries?," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 149(3), pages 505-535, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    significance testing;

    JEL classification:

    • A00 - General Economics and Teaching - - General - - - General

    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:ces:ceswps:_3246. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    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.