Abstract

The ongoing replicability and reproducibility crisis in the social sciences has revealed the importance of transparency and good scientific practice in the field of economics. Transparency – i.e., making procedures, datasets, and analysis codes publicly available – enables the scientific community to re-test the published results. Pre-analysis plans where study details are committed to in advance avoid researchers using the various “researcher degrees of freedom” that lead to unreliable p-values. In addition, replication studies are getting increased attention. However, replications are not systematic, and there is heterogeneity in knowledge and tools of sound scientific practices. Much work remains to be done to improve the credibility of results, where meta-science can guide the field towards a better scientific practice. Lab² (“Lab square”) is a hub for replications and meta-science based at WZB Berlin. The two overarching aims of Lab² are to increase the credibility of scientific results in the field of economics and to guide the field to engage in better scientific practice. Lab² brings together a global consortium of economic laboratories, a strong scientific advisory board, and academic institutional partners. We run three sets of activities at Lab². i) Research: we collaboratively run replication studies and meta-science-related studies. ii) Knowledge Transfer: we inform the scientific community and the public about the new findings and tools regarding transparency, replication studies, and meta-science. iii) Scientific Support and Education: we train junior researchers and graduate students on methods of transparency, replication studies, and meta-science.

Practical information