Abstract

The paper by Susan Feigenbaum and David Levy, 'The market for (ir)reproducible econometrics', has several meritorious features. It offers an interesting model of how econometric researchers might decide whether to replicate a previously published article and how journal editors might decide whether to publish such a replication study. It offers data about error rates involved in original studies and about the willingness of original researchers to submit their data to potential replicators. Finally, it endorses some plausible proposals for institutional changes that are warranted by their model and empirical findings. What we especially like in their approach is its contribution to the truth-oriented mission of social epistemology, at least as we interpret their overall project. Unlike many investigators in the social studies of science, Feigenbaum and Levy (hereafter F & L) are not only interested in the variables affecting the behaviour of scientific agents, but in whether these variables have positive or negative outcomes for the scientific acquisition of truth, and in how the interest of truth might best be served. In this respect their work bears a close analogy to our own work in social epistemology, as we shall explain below.