The Economics of Scientific Misconduct explores episodes of misconduct in the natural and biomedical sciences and replication failure in economics and psychology over the past half-century. Here scientific misconduct is considered from the perspective of a single discipline such as economics likely for the first time in intellectual history.
Research misconduct has become an important concern across many natural, medical, and social sciences, including economics, over the past half-century. Initially, a mainstream economic approach to science and scientific misconduct draws from conventional microeconomics and the theories of Becker, Ehrlich, and C. S. Peirce’s "economy of research." Then the works of Peirce and Thorstein Veblen from the 19th century point toward contemporary debates over statistical inference in econometrics and the failure of recent macroeconomic models. In more contemporary economics, clashes regarding discrimination and harassment have led to a Code of Professional Conduct from the American Economic Association and a Code of Ethics from one of its members. The last chapter considers research ethics matters related to the COVID-19 pandemic. There has been an explosion of research and some retractions. More generally, a concern with research ethics contributes to scientific progress by making some of its most difficult problems more transparent and understandable and thus possibly more surmountable.
This book offers valuable insights for students and scholars of research ethics across the sciences, philosophy of science and social science, and economic theory.
The Economics of Scientific Misconduct explores episodes of misconduct in the natural and biomedical sciences and replication failure in economics and psychology over the past half century.
1. Introduction
2. Scientific Misconduct in the Late 20th and Early 21st
Centuries
3. Replication Failure, Plagiarism, and Questionable Research
Practices in Economics and Psychology
4. The Unusual Economic Fundamentals of
Science and Universities
5. The Economics of Replication Failure and the
Preference Structures of Scientists
6. The Economics of Fraud in Science and
the Preferences of Misbehaving Scientists
7. Peirces Economy of Scientific
Research, Replication, and Accuracy
8. Questionable Research Practices in
Late 19th Century America
9. Peirces Economy of Historical Research and His
Defense of Aristotle, Plato, and Pythagoras
10. Veblen and Peirce on
Contested Research Practices in Economics
11. Contested Research Practices in
Econometrics, Methodology, and Macroeconomics
12. From Macroeconomic
Controversy to a Code of Conduct for Economists
13. The Credibility of
Science During the Pandemic
14. Scientific Misconduct as an Economically
Explainable Anomaly
James R. Wible is a Professor of Economics at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, NH. His research interests are economic methodology related to macro and monetary economics, the economics and philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce, and the economics of science and research misconduct.
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