Size matters: the standard error of regressions in the American Economic Review

Significance testing as used has no theoretical justification. Our article in the Journal of Economic Literature (1996) showed that of the 182 full-length papers published in the 1980s in the American Economic and Review 70% did not distinguish economic from statistical significance. Since 1996 many colleagues have told us that practice has improved. We interpret their response as an empirical claim, a judgment about a fact. Our colleagues,...