IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rsw/rswwps/rswwps176.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The cult of statistical significance. What economists should and should not do to make their data talk

Author

Listed:
  • Walter Krämer

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 economics 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 Krämer, 2011. "The cult of statistical significance. What economists should and should not do to make their data talk," RatSWD Working Papers 176, German Data Forum (RatSWD).
    • Handle: RePEc:rsw:rswwps:rswwps176
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.konsortswd.de/wp-content/uploads/RatSWD_WP_176.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joachim Wagner, 2010. "Entry, Exit and Productivity: Empirical Results for German Manufacturing Industries," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 11(1), pages 78-85, February.
    2. Feld Lars P. & Reulier Emmanuelle, 2009. "Strategic Tax Competition in Switzerland: Evidence from a Panel of the Swiss Cantons," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 91-114, February.
    3. repec:bla:germec:v:11:y:2010:i::p:109-149 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Feld Lars P. & Schneider Friedrich, 2010. "Survey on the Shadow Economy and Undeclared Earnings in OECD Countries," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 11(2), pages 109-149, May.
    5. repec:bla:germec:v:11:y:2010:i::p:37-59 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. repec:bla:germec:v:10:y:2009:i::p:91-114 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. repec:bla:germec:v:10:y:2009:i::p:317-338 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Bachmann Ronald & Burda Michael C., 2010. "Sectoral Transformation, Turbulence and Labor Market Dynamics in Germany," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 37-59, February.
    9. McCloskey, Donald N, 1985. "The Loss Function Has Been Mislaid: The Rhetoric of Significance Tests," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(2), pages 201-205, May.
    10. Krämer Walter & Arminger Gerhard, 2011. "“True Believers” or Numerical Terrorism at the Nuclear Power Plant," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 231(5-6), pages 608-620, October.
    11. Bettina Becker & Silke Uebelmesser, 2010. "Health Insurance Competition in Germany - the Role of Advertising," Schmollers Jahrbuch : Journal of Applied Social Science Studies / Zeitschrift für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 130(2), pages 169-194.
    12. repec:bla:germec:v:11:y:2010:i::p:78-85 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Lovell, Michael C, 1983. "Data Mining," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 65(1), pages 1-12, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. About the cult of statistical significance
      by Economic Logician in Economic Logic on 2012-03-07 20:40:00

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Frings Hanna, 2013. "The Employment Effect of Industry- Specific, Collectively Bargained Minimum Wages," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 14(3), pages 258-281, August.
    2. Adam Pilny, 2014. "Mergers and Acquisitions in the German Hospital Market – Who are the Targets?," Ruhr Economic Papers 0518, Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universität Dortmund, Universität Duisburg-Essen.
    3. Stephen T. Ziliak & Deirdre N. McCloskey, 2013. "We Agree That Statistical Significance Proves Essentially Nothing: A Rejoinder to Thomas Mayer," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 10(1), pages 97-107, January.
    4. Jens Rommel & Meike Weltin, 2021. "Is There a Cult of Statistical Significance in Agricultural Economics?," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 43(3), pages 1176-1191, September.
    5. Bücker, Michael & van Kampen, Maarten & Krämer, Walter, 2013. "Reject inference in consumer credit scoring with nonignorable missing data," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 1040-1045.
    6. Hirschauer Norbert & Grüner Sven & Mußhoff Oliver & Becker Claudia, 2019. "Twenty Steps Towards an Adequate Inferential Interpretation of p-Values in Econometrics," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 239(4), pages 703-721, August.
    7. Hirschauer, Norbert & Grüner, Sven & Mußhoff, Oliver & Becker, Claudia & Jantsch, Antje, 2020. "Can p-values be meaningfully interpreted without random sampling?," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 14, pages 71-91.
    8. Pilny, Adam, 2014. "Mergers and Acquisitions in the German Hospital Market – Who are the Targets?," Ruhr Economic Papers 518, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    9. Hübler, Olaf, 2013. "Methods in empirical economics - a selective review with applications," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-513, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    10. repec:zbw:rwirep:0518 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Alice Neuhäuser & Maike Mischler & Graeme Ruxton & Markus Neuhäuser, 2013. "Gründe für von der Fraktionsdisziplin abweichendes Abstimmungsverhalten bei Bundestagsabgeordneten," AStA Wirtschafts- und Sozialstatistisches Archiv, Springer;Deutsche Statistische Gesellschaft - German Statistical Society, vol. 7(1), pages 91-99, August.
    12. Walter Krämer, 2018. "Interview mit Günter Bamberg," AStA Wirtschafts- und Sozialstatistisches Archiv, Springer;Deutsche Statistische Gesellschaft - German Statistical Society, vol. 12(3), pages 299-307, December.
    13. Hirschauer Norbert & Mußhoff Oliver & Grüner Sven & Frey Ulrich & Theesfeld Insa & Wagner Peter, 2016. "Die Interpretation des p-Wertes – Grundsätzliche Missverständnisse," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 236(5), pages 557-575, October.
    14. Thomas Mayer, 2012. "Ziliak and McCloskey's Criticisms of Significance Tests: An Assessment," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 9(3), pages 256-297, September.
    15. Bernhard Rauch & Max G�ttsche & Stephan Langenegger, 2014. "Detecting Problems in Military Expenditure Data Using Digital Analysis," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(2), pages 97-111, April.
    16. Wobker, Inga & Lehmann-Waffenschmidt, Marco & Kenning, Peter & Gigerenzer, Gerd, 2012. "What do people know about the economy? A test of minimal economic knowledge in Germany," Dresden Discussion Paper Series in Economics 03/12, Technische Universität Dresden, Faculty of Business and Economics, Department of Economics.
    17. Hübler, Olaf, 2014. "Estimation of standard errors and treatment effects in empirical economics : methods and applications," Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 47(1-2), pages 43-62.
    18. W. Krämer, 2018. "Interview mit Volker Mammitzsch," AStA Wirtschafts- und Sozialstatistisches Archiv, Springer;Deutsche Statistische Gesellschaft - German Statistical Society, vol. 12(2), pages 179-188, September.
    19. Thomas Mayer, 2013. "Reply to Deirdre McCloskey and Stephen Ziliak on Statistical Significance," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 10(1), pages 87-96, January.

    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. Adrian C. Darnell, 1994. "A Dictionary Of Econometrics," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 118.
    2. Kevin Hoover & Mark Siegler, 2008. "Sound and fury: McCloskey and significance testing in economics," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(1), pages 1-37.
    3. Marc Poitras, 2004. "The Impact of Macroeconomic Announcements on Stock Prices: In Search of State Dependence," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 70(3), pages 549-565, January.
    4. Sandy Fréret & Denis Maguain, 2017. "The effects of agglomeration on tax competition: evidence from a two-regime spatial panel model on French data," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 24(6), pages 1100-1140, December.
    5. Labib Shami & Teddy Lazebnik, 2024. "Implementing Machine Learning Methods in Estimating the Size of the Non-observed Economy," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 63(4), pages 1459-1476, April.
    6. Owolabi, Adegboyega O. & Berdiev, Aziz N. & Saunoris, James W., 2022. "Is the shadow economy procyclical or countercyclical over the business cycle? International evidence," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 257-270.
    7. Dominik H. Enste, 2018. "The shadow economy in industrial countries," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 1-11, November.
    8. Matthieu Leprince & Sonia Paty & Emmanuelle Reulier, 2005. "Choix d'imposition et interactions spatiales entre collectivités locales. Un test sur les départements français," Recherches économiques de Louvain, De Boeck Université, vol. 71(1), pages 67-93.
    9. Castle Jennifer L. & Doornik Jurgen A & Hendry David F., 2011. "Evaluating Automatic Model Selection," Journal of Time Series Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 3(1), pages 1-33, February.
    10. Nino Kokashvili & Irakli Barbakadze & Ketevani Kapanadze, 2017. "How Participating In The Shadow Economy Affects The Growth Of Latvian Firms," University of Tartu - Faculty of Economics and Business Administration Working Paper Series 101, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, University of Tartu (Estonia).
    11. David F. Hendry & Hans-Martin Krolzig, 2005. "The Properties of Automatic "GETS" Modelling," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(502), pages C32-C61, 03.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • B40 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology - - - General
    • C12 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Hypothesis Testing: General
    • C52 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Model Evaluation, Validation, and Selection

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. Economic Logic blog

    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:rsw:rswwps:rswwps176. 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: RatSWD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rtswdde.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.