Why? Caplan suggests it’s because no one believes quantitative social science is meaningful. Maybe, but I suspect the explanation is simpler: There’s not much glory in checking someone else’s work.
This is probably wrong. There is tons of glory in checking someone's work and finding a mistake. Look at all the controversy and major media coverage over the the Reinhart and Rogoff paper, which was undermined by some majors data collection errors that were later pointed out. This was a major deal at the time.
Most people probably already expected Caplan's thesis to be true or took it for granted as true, so there was no compelling need to check. People will only check if the the conclusion goes against their assumptions or something commonly accepted to be true. So a paper which claims to refute the premise of Keynesianism is something that economists are probably going to be be more inclined to check than a conclusion that affirms the orthodoxy.
> Look at all the controversy and major media coverage over the the Reinhart and Rogoff paper, which was undermined by some majors data collection errors that were later pointed out. This was a major deal at the time.
HAP made a ton of noise (in specialist circles) certainly. But was it a "major deal"? Was RR really "undermined"?
I see no major change in policy as a result, and popular wisdom among the intelligent-but-lagging public, seems to still that public debt drags on growth. (RR has been near the front of my mind this week as a CEO I know mentioned it and was totally unaware it had been so completely "undermined" a decade prior.)
Refuting the RR paper was an exception, because it was such a high profile paper used by many policy makers in a critical economic situation.
I’ve seen colleagues waste weeks to get any kind of attention to clear, and when pointed out, quite obvious errors in scientific papers. The original authors have responded with insults, and the editors have had no interest in publishing any kind of criticism.
This is probably wrong. There is tons of glory in checking someone's work and finding a mistake. Look at all the controversy and major media coverage over the the Reinhart and Rogoff paper, which was undermined by some majors data collection errors that were later pointed out. This was a major deal at the time.
Most people probably already expected Caplan's thesis to be true or took it for granted as true, so there was no compelling need to check. People will only check if the the conclusion goes against their assumptions or something commonly accepted to be true. So a paper which claims to refute the premise of Keynesianism is something that economists are probably going to be be more inclined to check than a conclusion that affirms the orthodoxy.