Fake peer reviews appear to be a problem in some fields

Scientific publishing is full of challenges, but fake peer reviews are an issue which as far as I am aware is not a significant problem in Economics, although it appears to be in some other fields.

E.g. here's a post from Retraction Watch:
Major publisher retracting more than 100 studies from cancer journal over fake peer reviews
"Springer is retracting 107 papers from one journal after discovering they had been accepted with fake peer reviews. Yes, 107.

"To submit a fake review, someone (often the author of a paper) either makes up an outside expert to review the paper, or suggests a real researcher — and in both cases, provides a fake email address that comes back to someone who will invariably give the paper a glowing review. In this case, Springer, the publisher of Tumor Biology through 2016, told us that an investigation produced “clear evidence” the reviews were submitted under the names of real researchers with faked emails. Some of the authors may have used a third-party editing service, which may have supplied the reviews. "

And this:
Can you spot a fake? New tool aims to help journals identify fake reviews
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Here's a related NY Times article:
Fraud Scandals Sap China’s Dream of Becoming a Science Superpower

"Having conquered world markets and challenged American political and military leadership, China has set its sights on becoming a global powerhouse in a different field: scientific research. It now has more laboratory scientists than any other country, outspends the entire European Union on research and development, and produces more scientific articles than any other nation except the United States.

"But in its rush to dominance, China has stood out in another, less boastful way. Since 2012, the country has retracted more scientific papers because of faked peer reviews than all other countries and territories put together, according to Retraction Watch, a blog that tracks and seeks to publicize retractions of research papers.
...
"In April, a scientific journal retracted 107 biology research papers, the vast majority of them written by Chinese authors, after evidence emerged that they had faked glowing reviews of their articles. Then, this summer, a Chinese gene scientist who had won celebrity status for breakthroughs once trumpeted as Nobel Prize-worthy was forced to retract his research when other scientists failed to replicate his results.

"At the same time, a government investigation highlighted the existence of a thriving online black market that sells everything from positive peer reviews to entire research articles."

NAS report on The Value of Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences to National Priorities

As Congress continues to debate funding for science, here's a new report from the National Academies of Science: The Value of Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences to National Priorities:  A Report for the National Science Foundation

Two paragraphs on the uses of game theory and  market design caught my eye (you should be able to make them biglier by clicking on them...) :

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Update: here's the NSF news release on the NAS report:
New report concludes social, behavioral and economic sciences help advance national health, prosperity and defense
National Academies releases 'The Value of Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences to National Priorities'

"The full report mentions specific examples of NSF-supported SBE research that has advanced welfare, prosperity and security, including the creation of kidney exchange programs, improved cybersecurity and improved counterterrorism efforts.

"Like all sciences, the SBE sciences bring a rigorous, methodological approach to pursuing knowledge," the report states, noting that SBE scientists have contributed new methods of data collection and analysis now used by governments, researchers and business.

The National Academies will host a public discussion Wednesday, July 19, from 9 a.m.-12:30 p.m. EDT at its headquarters at 2101 Constitution Ave. NW, Washington, D.C."

Supporting science during the budget process: an op-ed in the St. Louis Post Dispatch

Here's an op-ed that ran this week in the St. Louis Post Dispatch:

Federally funded research helps connect transplant patients with donors
By Al Roth and Stuart Sweet

"To the nearly 5,000 people in our region and millions of Americans around the country suffering from kidney disease and waiting for a donor, federally funded research into obscure-sounding economic theory may turn out to be just what the doctor ordered.

As the president of the United Network for Organ Sharing Board of Directors and a Nobel Prize-winning economic researcher who did that work, we have seen first-hand how scientific research, even in seemingly unrelated fields, has the power to connect those suffering with disease with vital cures. And yet, the budget proposed by the current administration proposes to dramatically scale back on research, rather than double down on investments in potentially life-saving research.
...
"Thanks to research funded by the Navy and the National Science Foundation, spanning multiple decades, we’ve developed a system in which kidneys can be exchanged among pairs of donors and recipients who aren’t compatible with each other. How? We pair them, or in some cases, chain them together across multiple donor-recipient pairs, so that each patient gets a compatible kidney from another patient’s donor.

"This approach has saved thousands of lives and hundreds of millions of dollars. Recipients enjoy better quality of life, and every transplant saves the government more than a quarter of a million dollars in health care costs that would have gone to prolonged dialysis treatment.

"Over the past six years, the United Network for Organ Sharing has been running a pilot program to help incompatible donors find compatible pairs for kidney paired donation. In its first five years, the pilot program helped 155 patients receive a healthy kidney despite experiencing the heartbreak of finding out that the person willing to give them the incredible gift of a kidney was not a match.

"Policymakers from both sides of the aisle and around the country have long supported robust investment in basic and applied research that makes success stories like these possible. They have seen that across every industry and sector, investments in research have impacted everything from manufacturing to agriculture and national security, and innovations like kidney paired donation that ensure more Americans can live long, healthy lives.

"We particularly applaud Sen. Roy Blunt’s work as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health, and Human Services to increase research funding, especially for the NIH, and with his colleagues throughout the Congress to protect investments in research and development overall. We urge them to reassert that federal funding for science is an important investment in our nation’s future.

Dr. Stuart Sweet is a professor of pediatrics at Washington University, medical director of the pediatric lung transplant program at St. Louis Children’s Hospital and president of the United Network for Organ Sharing Board of Directors.

Alvin E. Roth is a professor of economics at Stanford University, shared the 2012 Nobel Prize in economics, and is the author of “Who Gets What and Why.”

Science publishing and (versus?) science

The Guardian has an interesting history of modern science publishing, focusing on the growth of Elsevier.

Is the staggeringly profitable business of scientific publishing bad for science?
It is an industry like no other, with profit margins to rival Google – and it was created by one of Britain’s most notorious tycoons: Robert Maxwell. By Stephen Buranyi

hard to excerpt, but worth reading whole...

Repugnance to Science: Brecht's "Life of Galileo" at the Young Vic

I had the great pleasure of seeing a timely production of Brecht's Life of Galileo at the Young Vic.

Before his troubles with the Church, Galileo has a Silicon Valley vibe:
"When a young man in Siena, I saw how a couple of builders, after five minutes argument, replaced a thousand-year-old system for moving graniteblocks by a new and more practical arrangement of the tackle. Then andthere I knew-the old age is past and a new age is here."

Later in the play, the Cardinal Inquisitor explains to the Pope why the Church should regard science with repugnance:

" A terrible unrest has come, into the world. It is this unrest in their own minds which these men would impose on the motionless earth. They cry: the figures compel us. But whence come their figures? They come from doubt, as
everyone knows. These men doubt everything. Are we to establish human
society on doubt and no longer on faith? ‘You are my master, but I doubt if
that is a good thing.’ That is your house and your wife, but I doubt whether
they should not be mine.’ "
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Climate change anyone?

Supporting science during the budget process--an op-ed in Alabama

Government funding of science is important, and at risk.  Here's an opinion piece that ran yesterday in Alabama, which seeks to bring some of the direct benefits in Alabama to the attention of Alabama's citizens and representatives in Washington (using the active kidney exchange program in Alabama as an example).

Trump budget puts future scientific advances at risk
By Alvin E. Roth, the Craig and Susan McCaw Professor of Economics at Stanford University
and Dr. Jayme Locke, Associate Professor at UAB School of Medicine and the Director of the Incompatible Kidney Transplant Program and Transplant Analytics, Informatics & Quality

Here are the final paragraphs:

"As the Director of the Incompatible Kidney Transplant Program at UAB and a Nobel Prize winning economic researcher, we have seen first-hand the power of science to connect those suffering with disease with vital cures.

We applaud Senator Shelby as a leader of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Representatives Aderholt and Roby on the House Appropriations Committee, as well as all of the Alabama Congressional delegation on their work to support vital R&D investments in a bipartisan way.

We are hopeful that leaders will once again demonstrate that funding America's future innovation is a bipartisan imperative. "

Replication in Economics

Professor Bob Reed at U of Canterbury points me to The Replication Network, a website he co-founded with Dr Maren Duvendack of  U of E. Anglia to promote replication in Economics, and assemble information about replication studies.

See also their paper and the others in the  Papers and Proceedings (May 2017)  issue of the American Economic Review, which begins with a section on replication:
REPLICATION IN MICROECONOMICS

Assessing the Rate of Replication in Economics

• James Berry, Lucas C. Coffman, DouglasHanley, Rania Gihleb and Alistair J.Wilson

(pp. 27-31)

Replications in Development Economics

• Sandip Sukhtankar

(pp. 32-36)

Replication in Labor Economics: Evidence from Data, and What It Suggests

• Daniel S. Hamermesh

(pp. 37-40)

A Proposal to Organize and Promote Replications

• Lucas C. Coffman, Muriel Niederle andAlistair J. Wilson

(pp. 41-45)

REPLICATION AND ETHICS IN ECONOMICS: THIRTY YEARS AFTER DEWALD, THURSBY, AND ANDERSON

What Is Meant by "Replication" and Why Does It Encounter Resistance in Economics?

• Maren Duvendack, Richard Palmer-Jones and W. Robert Reed

(pp. 46-51)

Replication and Economics Journal Policies

• Jan H. Höffler

(pp. 52-55)

Replication, Meta-analysis, and Research Synthesis in Economics

• Richard G. Anderson and Areerat Kichkha

(pp. 56-59)

A Preanalysis Plan to Replicate Sixty Economics Research Papers That Worked Half of the Time

• Andrew C. Chang and Phillip Li

(pp. 60-64)

Replicability and credibility of scientific research as a challenge to market design

A recent issue of PLOS Biology carries a call for some market design:

The credibility crisis in research: Can economics tools help?
Thomas Gall, John P. A. Ioannidis, Zacharias Maniadis
Published: April 26, 2017 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2001846

Abstract: The issue of nonreplicable evidence has attracted considerable attention across biomedical and other sciences. This concern is accompanied by an increasing interest in reforming research incentives and practices. How to optimally perform these reforms is a scientific problem in itself, and economics has several scientific methods that can help evaluate research reforms. Here, we review these methods and show their potential. Prominent among them are mathematical modeling and laboratory experiments that constitute affordable ways to approximate the effects of policies with wide-ranging implications.

Understanding Markets Can Save Lives: Congressional Briefing and Reception, April 18

The Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA), of which the American Economic Association is a member, is sponsoring a Congressional Briefing on April 18. If you're in Washington next Tuesday you could come and cheer on those Congress folks who are interested in supporting science.

WHY SOCIAL SCIENCE? Because Understanding Markets Can Save Lives: Congressional Briefing and Reception

April 18 @ 3:00 pm - 6:00 pm

Discussion with Alvin Roth, Winner of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Economics

Tuesday April 18, 2017
3:00 pm – 4:30 pm
Reception from 4:30 – 6:00 pm
2167 Rayburn House Office Building

RSVP by April 13.

Dr. Alvin Roth is the Craig and Susan McCaw Professor of Economics at Stanford University, and the George Gund Professor Emeritus of Economics and Business Administration at Harvard University. Dr. Roth’s fundamental research in market design has revolutionized kidney exchanges, allowing incompatible patient-donor pairs to find compatible kidneys for transplantation. Dr. Roth’s matching theories have also been applied to school matching systems used in New York City, Boston, Denver, New Orleans, and several other cities, among other applications.

Come learn how social science can have real, significant impacts on our everyday lives, often in unexpected ways.

This widely attended event is made possible with support from Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson and SAGE Publishing.

Thank a scientist: ad campaign from National Academy of Sciences

Series Update: From Research to Reward From Research to Reward, the NAS series of articles and videos about the human benefits that arise from discoveries made through scientific research, is being promoted through Washington Post ads, broadcast messages on Washington’s NPR station, placement of ads on social media, and a telephone campaign aimed at making prospective partners aware of the availability of the materials for their own use. All products to date focus on the social and behavioral sciences. A new phase of the project will concern the geosciences and other natural sciences. Here's a picture of the Washington Post ad about economics, featuring kidney exchange: , (Here's my earlier post on the NAS video from which that picture comes: The human side of kidney exchange: video from NAS (5 minutes)

An interview about travel bans, and universities, and science...

NOBELPREISTRÄGER ALVIN ROTH ZUM EINREISEVERBOT

„Grenzschließung wäre eine große Schande“

von:

• Thomas Jahn

Datum:

• 14.02.2017 11:05 Uhr

PREMIUMStanford-Professor und Nobelpreisträger Alvin Roth sorgt sich um den Forschungsstandort USA. Im Interview spricht er über die Folgen von Donald Trumps Einreiseverboten und die Universitäten als Spiegelbild Amerikas.

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Nobelpreisträger Roth

„Wir haben viele Vorteile durch Einwanderung – Universitäten profitieren ganz besonders.“

(Foto: AFP)

Im Jahr 2012 gewann Alvin Roth den Nobelpreis für Wirtschaftswissenschaften. Der 65-Jährige, der an der Universität Stanford in Kalifornien lehrt, macht sich Sorgen um den Forschungsstandort Amerika.

It's in German, and it's gated, but the interviewer asked me what I thought the effects of travel bans and immigration bans would be on the U.S. I replied that universities are in some ways a microcosm of the US, in that both have thrived by being open to participation from people around the world.  Universities, American science, and America will all suffer if we cut ourselves off from the rest of the world.

Market for ideas vs travel bans: academic societies and universities react

A large group of scientific societies have signed this Multisociety letter deploring the recent Executive Order regarding travel to the U.S.  (The American Economic Association is represented through its membership in COSSA, the Consortium of Social Sciences Associations.)
http://www.cossa.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Multisociety-Letter-on-Immigration-1-31-2017.pdf
"The Executive Order will discourage many of the best and brightest international students, scholars, engineers and scientists from studying and working, attending academic and scientific conferences, or seeking to build new businesses in the United States. Implementation of this policy will compromise the United States’ ability to attract international scientific talent and maintain scientific and economic leadership.
Today, we urge the Administration to rescind the Executive Order and we stand ready to assist you in crafting an immigration and visa policy that advances U.S. prosperity and ensures strong borders while staying true to foundational American principles as a nation of immigrants. "

Below are a variety of other reactions (in no particular order), many of which balance charters which require some scientific societies to be nonpartisan, with the concern that the recent Executive Order negatively affects their core mission.

http://president.mit.edu/speeches-writing/best-serve-nation-and-world

http://www.asanet.org/news-events/asa-news/statement-american-sociological-association-concerning-new-administrations-recent-and-future

AMS Board of Trustees Opposes Executive Order on Immigration 
Monday January 30th 2017

Statement from the International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR)

Condemning the U.S. President’s 2017-01-27 Executive Order

Barring Entry into the U.S. of Citizens from Seven Muslim-Majority Countries

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/01/30/higher-education-leaders-denounce-trumps-travel-ban

https://www.macalester.edu/president/writing/statement-january2017executiveorders.pdf
"We are heartbroken and we are angry, but we are not defeated. This is far from the first, and will not be the last, shameful moment in our country’s history. But at every one of those moments, people have arisen to call forth and inspire “the better angels of our nature.”

http://news.stanford.edu/2017/01/28/community-letter-stanford-leadership-immigration/

http://www.harvard.edu/president/news/2017/we-are-all-harvard

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Update: February 3 letter from American Council on Education, signed by about 600 colleges and universities, to the Secretary of Homeland Security 
http://www.acenet.edu/news-room/Documents/Letter-From-Institutions-to-DHS-on-Immigration-Executive-Order.pdf