We are proud to announce that Professor Erik Ø. Sørensen has been awarded a $23,000 Peder Sather Grant for the project “Reporting in Practice: Lessons from 350 RCTs and Interventions to Increase Results Reporting in Economics.” The award is given by the Peder Sather Center for Advanced Study, which supports collaborative research projects between UC Berkeley faculty and researchers at Norwegian institutions.

 

Project Abstract:

Publication bias and selective reporting undermine research credibility and quality. Since 2023, the Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences (BITSS) and the Center for Experimental Research on Fairness, Inequality, and Rationality (FAIR) have worked together to improve the transparency and reproducibility of social science research. Our team has conducted one of the largest follow-up studies in economics measuring publication bias at the hypothesis level, systematically encoding 350 studies from the American Economic Association (AEA) Registry. We also ran an RCT to test targeted interventions, including pre-populated templates and RA assistance, to improve results reporting by authors of those studies. With initial data collection funded by FAIR, we now seek funding to complete the analysis and dissemination of our findings. The results will provide actionable insights for journals, funders, and researchers to reduce publication bias, recover results from missing studies, and ultimately strengthen the reliability of social science evidence for policy making and metaanalysis.

 

We congratulate Professor Sørensen on this well-deserved recognition and look forward to following the progress of this impactful project.