1,721,067 research outputs found
Flexibility in the selection of patent counts: Implications for p-hacking and evidence-based policymaking
No full textThis study analyzes how researchers' degrees of freedom in selecting patent counts influence econometrically estimated policy effects. Using the evaluation of solar energy policies as an example, we identify 51 strategies to select solar patents from the literature resulting in 306 different solar patent counts, considering six common quality levels of patents. We replicate two leading studies in this literature and re-estimate their econometric models using all of these patent counts. Our results demonstrate severe uncertainty regarding sizes and even signs of key policy effects, opening up the potential for p-hacking and posing a fundamental challenge for evidence-based policymaking. We recommend that more emphasis should be devoted to patent selection procedures, including careful sensitivity analysis regarding key assumptions, such as search strategy and patent quality level. More research is needed to develop common quality standards in working with patent data.Acknowledgments
We are grateful to Nick Johnstone for providing us code and data of both policy variables and patent counts for Johnstone et al. (2010) and to Volker Hoffmann and Michael Peters for providing us data on the policy variables of Peters et al. (2012). This paper was written as part of the research project GRETCHEN (The impact of the German policy mix on technological and structural change in renewable power generation technologies), which is funded by the German Ministry of Education
and Research (BMBF) within its funding priority “Economics of Climate Change” under the funding label Econ-C-026. We gratefully acknowledge this support. Previous drafts of the paper were presented at the OECD IP Statistics for Decision Makers Conference 2015 in Vienna, at the Ruhr-University Bochum, the 10th European Meeting on Applied Evolutionary Economics in Strasbourg, the ZEW Mannheim Energy Conference 2017 and the EPIP 2017 conference in Bordeaux. We are grateful for discussions by and with Rudi Bekkers, Uwe Cantner, Holger Graf, Maximilian Göthner, Dietmar Harhoff, Christian Pigorsch, Bastian Rake, Muhammad Faraz Riaz and Karoline Rogge. We are grateful for the comments and suggestions by two anonymous reviewers and the editor
How large is the economy-wide rebound effect in middle income countries? Evidence from Iran
No full textRecent research suggests that the economy-wide rebound effect is near 100% in several high-income countries. Is it similarly large in middle-income countries? Iran is a middle-income country that is also a large oil producer. We estimate the economy-wide rebound effect for Iran using a structural vector autoregressive model and quarterly data from 1988:3 to 2018:1. We identify the structural shocks by independent component analysis, a statistical identification technique that does not require us to impose restrictions based on economic theory on the model. The results show that in response to an energy efficiency shock energy use falls initially but returns to near its original level over time. The economy-wide rebound effect in Iran is 84% after 6 years and its confidence interval includes 100%. This implies that policies that encourage energy efficiency innovation will have limited long-term impact on energy use
Determinants of economic growth: Different time different answer?
No full textAlmost all studies that use Bayesian model averaging to identify robust growth determinantsfocusonthegrowthperiodbetween1960andthe1990s.WeapplyBayesianModelAveragingtoa rolling time window of 20 and 35 years using a newly compiled dataset with 37 growth de-terminants for the years 1960 to 2010. Our findings indicate instabilities in the inferences ongrowth determinants across growth periods. In line with prior research, we find support forrobustambiguityinearlygrowthperiods,thatis,cross-countrygrowthregressionsprovidelittlesupportforsomegrowthdeterminantsbeingmoreimportantthanothers.However,determinantsrelatedtodemography,education,trade,investmentandtosomeextentreligionseemtomatterinthesubsequentgrowthperiodswitheducationanddemographybeingmostimportantinre-centgrowthperiods
Replication and robustness analysis of ‘Energy and economic growth in the USA: a multivariate approach’
Full text linkWe replicate Stern (1993, Energy Economics), who argues and empirically demonstrates that it is necessary (i) to use quality-adjusted energy use and (ii) to include capital and labor as control variables in order to find Granger causality from energy use to GDP. Though we could not access the original dataset, we can verify the main original inferences using data that are as close as possible to the original. We analyze the robustness of the original findings to an alternative estimation approach, alternative definitions of variables, and alternative model specifications for both the (almost) original time span (1949-1990) and an extended time span (1949-2015). p-values tend to be substantially smaller if energy use is quality adjusted rather than measured by total joules and if capital is included. Including labor has mixed results. These findings tend to largely support Stern’s (1993) two main conclusions and emphasize the importance of accounting for changes in the energy mix in time series modeling of the energy-GDP relationship and controlling for other factors of production. We also discuss how the inclusion of the original author in designing the replication study using a pre-analysis plan can help to counterbalance the incentive of replicating authors to disconfirm major findings of the original article to increase the probability of getting published.ARC DP16010075
Do Energy Efficiency Improvements Reduce Energy Use? Empirical Evidence on the Economy-Wide Rebound Effect in Europe and the United States
Full text linkImproving energy efficiency is often considered to be one of the keys to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, efficiency gains also reduce the cost of energy services and may even reduce the price of energy, resulting in energy use rebounding and potential energy use savings being eaten up. There is only limited empirical research quantifying the economy-wide rebound effect that takes the dynamic economic responses to energy efficiency improvements into account. We use a Structural Factor-Augmented Vector Autoregressive model (S-FAVAR) that allows us to track how energy use changes in response to an energy efficiency improvement while accounting for a vast range of potential confounders. Our findings point to economy-wide rebound effects of 78% to 101% after two years in France, Germany, Italy, the U.K., and the U.S. These findings imply that energy efficiency innovations alone may be of limited help in reducing future energy use and emphasize the importance of tackling carbon emissions directly
The effects of data and code availability policies on journal articles
No full textUsing 535,838 tests from 21 top economics journals, we analyze the effects of data and code availability policies on characteristics of published journal articles. We use a difference-in-differences imputation design and show that these policies result in less emphasis on statistical significance, more rigor (i.e., more tests and tables), but not in more citations. Our results indicate that these policies might reduce questionable research practices that favor statistically significant findings, while not being rewarded with more citations. We contribute new insights on the effects of journal policies and resolves mixed evidence in previous literature by considering a substantially larger sample
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