Is there a journal for replications in experimental economics?

Question

Is there a journal that publishes replications (failed and successful) of (published) experiments? And, if not, why not? And what about failed experiments (i.e. experiments with insignificant results)?

I think replications of experiments are very important, as experiments in economics depend on many different things and most of them we don't really understand. Having replicated an experiment helps to make sure that the results obtained are not by pure chance (or worse). And, more importantly, failed attempts to replicate a study shows that there was something wrong in one of the studies.

As this was not clear: I am talking about lab experiments, not field experiments.

Answer 1

• Experimental Economics states: "The journal will also consider articles with a primary focus on methodology or replication of controversial findings."
• The Economics e-Journal takes replications from any field.

The Behavioral Economics Replication Project could be interesting for you. They presented their research at the 2016 American Economic Association Annual Meeting.

Answer 2

I assume you're talking about field experiments and empirical work in general. (Not Vernon Smith's style lab experiments.)

AidGrade

• http://www.aidgrade.org/compare-programs-by-outcome

The website aggregates results from multiple programs, including those that showed no significant relationships.

Also read Vivalt, “How Much Can We Generalize from Impact Evaluations?”

But also any academic journal publishing the empirics

Some researchers publish insignificant results of empirical work as a matter of refutation someone else's theory, usually along with significant results. Field experiments in economics allow for this, since you're trying to test as many hypotheses as possible when running a $1M-plus experiment.

For example:

• Reshaping Institutions: Evidence on Aid Impacts Using a Preanalysis Plan, https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/qjecon/v127y2012i4p1755-1812.html
• Direct Democracy and Resource Allocation: Experimental Evidence from Afghanistan, https://ideas.repec.org/p/cfr/cefirw/w0192.html

You can see that these papers address many issues at once, including "failed" hypotheses. So, any journal that includes empirics also includes failed experiments.

Answer 3

The Journal of Economic Science Association, a companion journal to Experimental Economics is one outlet devoted to publishing, among other article types, replication of experiments.

As said on the website of the Economic Science Association:

The Journal of the Economic Science Association is dedicated to advancing theoretical, empirical, methodological and policy-relevant knowledge using experimental economic methods. JESA promotes research pioneering and advancing laboratory and field methods to address important economic questions that are difficult to examine using naturally occurring data. JESA is open to all areas of inquiry in economics and at the intersection of economics and other disciplines including but not limited to psychology, political science, statistics, finance, marketing, and organizational behavior.

JESA will focus on publishing shorter papers (original articles, methodological pieces, surveys, comments on recently published experimental papers), and article types that are important yet under-represented in the experimental literature (i.e., replications, minor extensions, robustness checks, meta-analyses, and good experimental designs even if obtaining null results). JESA will periodically publish special issues with themes of particular interest for economics experiments, including articles solicited from leading scholars both within and outside of experimental economics.

JESA advances experimental economics by bringing together innovative research that meets professional standards of experimental method, but without editorial bias towards specific orientations. All papers will be reviewed through the standard, anonymous-referee procedure and all accepted manuscripts will be subject to the approval of both editors. Authors are expected to submit separate data and instruction appendices which will be attached to the journal's web page upon publication.

The journal is published under the auspices of the Economic Science Association, a professional organization devoted to using controlled experiments to learn about economic behavior. JESA is a companion journal to Experimental Economics which will publish longer original articles (excluding meta-analyses), together with longer surveys and methodologies.