The Identification and Prevention of Publication Bias in the Social Sciences and Economics
-
Bernd Weiß
and
Michael Wagner
Summary
Systematic research reviews have become essential in all empirical sciences. However, the validity of research syntheses is threatened by the fact that not all studies on a given topic can be summarized. Research reviews may suffer from missing data, and this is especially crucial in those cases where the selectivity of studies and their findings affects the summarized result. So-called publication bias is a type of missing data and a phenomenon that jeopardizes the validity of systematic or quantitative, as well as narrative, reviews. Publication bias exists if the preparation, submission or publication of research findings depend on characteristics of just these research results, e. g. their direction or statistical significance. This article describes methods to identify publication bias in the context of meta-analysis. It also reviews empirical studies on the prevalence of publication bias, especially in the social and economic sciences, where publication bias also seems to be prevalent. Several proposals to prevent publication bias are discussed.
© 2011 by Lucius & Lucius, Stuttgart
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelei
- Inhalt / Contents
- Guest Editorial
- Abhandlungen / Original Papers
- The Production of Historical “Facts”: How the Wrong Number of Participants in the Leipzig Monday Demonstration on October 9, 1989 Became a Convention
- “True Believers” or Numerical Terrorism at the Nuclear Power Plant
- One-eyed Epidemiologic Dummies at Nuclear Power Plants
- Are Most Published Research Findings False?
- What Fuels Publication Bias?
- The Identification and Prevention of Publication Bias in the Social Sciences and Economics
- Benford’s Law as an Instrument for Fraud Detection in Surveys Using the Data of the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP)
- When Does the Second-Digit Benford’s Law-Test Signal an Election Fraud?
- Difficulties Detecting Fraud? The Use of Benford’s Law on Regression Tables
- Plagiarism in Student Papers: Prevalence Estimates Using Special Techniques for Sensitive Questions
- Pitfalls of International Comparative Research: Taking Acquiescence into Account
- Buchbesprechungen / Book Reviews
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelei
- Inhalt / Contents
- Guest Editorial
- Abhandlungen / Original Papers
- The Production of Historical “Facts”: How the Wrong Number of Participants in the Leipzig Monday Demonstration on October 9, 1989 Became a Convention
- “True Believers” or Numerical Terrorism at the Nuclear Power Plant
- One-eyed Epidemiologic Dummies at Nuclear Power Plants
- Are Most Published Research Findings False?
- What Fuels Publication Bias?
- The Identification and Prevention of Publication Bias in the Social Sciences and Economics
- Benford’s Law as an Instrument for Fraud Detection in Surveys Using the Data of the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP)
- When Does the Second-Digit Benford’s Law-Test Signal an Election Fraud?
- Difficulties Detecting Fraud? The Use of Benford’s Law on Regression Tables
- Plagiarism in Student Papers: Prevalence Estimates Using Special Techniques for Sensitive Questions
- Pitfalls of International Comparative Research: Taking Acquiescence into Account
- Buchbesprechungen / Book Reviews
