Meanwhile, I met other academics that had run the same regression as me. Famous ones you have probably heard of. Their reaction was the same as mine: “Oh, I found that result,” several said, “but I’m worried there’s nothing there because my data have problems, and the specification wasn’t quite right. So I left it out of the paper. I’ve been meaning to get back to that.”
Let’s follow a simple decision rule: run your regressions with inevitably imperfect data and models. If you get the theoretically predicted result (any of them), publish. If not, wait and look into your data and empirical strategy more.
The result? As in the natural sciences, most published research findings are probably false.
