Replication Redux : The Reproducibility Crisis and the Case of Deworming
In 2004, a landmark study showed that an inexpensive medication to treat parasitic worms could improve health and school attendance for millions of children in many developing countries. Eleven years later, a headline in the Guardian reported that...
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2019
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/118271556632669793/Replication-Redux-The-Reproducibility-Crisis-and-the-Case-of-Deworming http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31600 |
| Summary: | In 2004, a landmark study showed that an
inexpensive medication to treat parasitic worms could
improve health and school attendance for millions of
children in many developing countries. Eleven years later, a
headline in the Guardian reported that this treatment,
deworming, had been "debunked." The pronouncement
followed an effort to replicate and re-analyze the original
study, as well as an update to a systematic review of the
effects of deworming. This story made waves amidst
discussion of a reproducibility crisis in some of the social
sciences. This paper explores what it means to
"replicate" and "reanalyze" a study,
both in general and in the specific case of deworming. The
paper reviews the broader replication efforts in economics,
then examines the key findings of the original deworming
paper in light of the "replication,"
"reanalysis," and "systematic review."
The paper also discusses the nature of the link between this
single paper's findings, other papers' findings,
and any policy recommendations about deworming. This example
provides a perspective on the ways replication and
reanalysis work, the strengths and weaknesses of systematic
reviews, and whether there is, in fact, a reproducibility
crisis in economics. |
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