Editor's Note

 

It is a great privilege for me to be recently appointed editor-in-chief of Investigación Económica. This is the most renowned journal in the country, both from a national and international perspective. One key to its success is that, in the past, Investigación Económica has published articles with the highest scientific standards, with contents that have been relevant and timely, for theoretical discussions and for the analysis of economic policies. With the support of the Editorial Team, I will implement changes that I hope will preserve and deepen this good tradition.

From this moment on, the reader will find a new section entitled "For scientific debate". There we will post both invited papers and submissions. Additionally, in this opening section the reader will find "Comments" and a "Reply" from the author, if it is requested.

A long time ago our dear professor Granger (1990, p. 2) explained that statistical models seek "to affect the beliefs —and hence the behavior— of other research workers and possibly other economic agents." In this sense, a model is called transferable if its producer shares with her consumers the set of equations, with estimates of the parameters, and the results of a comprehensive exercise. I'm sorry to say that, currently, this approach seems a bit naive.

The sciences have a golden rule called "replication", which has been happily ignored by the average economist (National Academy of Sciences, 2002). Investigación Económica will certify empirical articles doubly, that is, we will review the quality of the databases, and we will replicate their quantitative exercises, partially or fully. We will make a similar effort in the case of articles that use simulation methods. In this regard I want to advance that our Technical Team, together with some editorial board members, will elaborate evaluations that I will post at the end of the empirical articles. For now, I invite authors to request this certification voluntarily and to share with Investigación Económica their databases and codes used to perform statistical and mathematical exercises. In a second phase, this invitation will be obligatory. To cite but one terrible example, Duvendack, Palmer-Jones, and Reed (2015, pp. 181-182) uncovered the following:

What can we learn from our analysis of replication studies? Most importantly, and perhaps not too surprisingly, the main takeaway is that, conditional on the replication having been published, there is a high rate of discontinuation. Over the full set of replication studies, approximately two out of every three studies were unable to confirm the original findings. Another 12 percent discontinued at least one major finding of the original study, while confirming others (Mixed?). In other words, nearly 80 percent of replication studies have found major flaws in the original research.

A fundamental question that emerges from the application of this scientific principle is the following: to what extent should publicly funded research make its inputs and instruments available to society? For our part, we will initially ask the authors if they want their databases, codes, etc., to appear on the website of Investigación Económica. I am sure that sooner rather than later our authors will share these key parts of their research with the rest of the scientific community.

To improve its quality I have redesigned the Editorial Team of Investigación Económica. Its parts are the following: a Local Board, a National Board, an International Board, an Advisor Board, Ex officio Members, and a Technical Team. The Editorial Team will support me in carrying forward the traditional work linked to a scientific journal as well as in other tasks that the reader will discover. By the way, my preference for "big names" depends on their genuine contribution to our editorial project.

Speaking on behalf of the Director of the School of Economics, I would like to express our appreciation for the invaluable support of the outgoing members of the Editorial Board. The above responds to the rule of permanence and reflects best practice in scientific journals.

Regarding the new contents of Investigación Económica it is my pleasure to make the following announcements. From this issue on, Investigación Económica welcomes contributions that replicate published articles and those that report cases of "failures" instead of "success". Suffice it to say that in both cases I am only following the request of some methodologists of science (van Hilten Goodchild, 2015, and Hendry, 1980, p. 388). Also we begin publishing reviews of books.

Investigación Económica is the heritage of the Faculty of Economics of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) . Let me make two requests to the members of my community. First, we must all take care of it, it belongs to all of us; secondly, I ask you that once again you consider Investigación Económica as the preferred outlet for your products, so, all of you, please submit! As editor of Investigación Económica I promise to apply all my scientific skills, and my passion. Thank you for your trust.

 

Carlos Guerrero de Lizardi
Editor, Investigación Económica

 

References

Duvendack, M., Palmer-Jones, R., and Reed, W, 2015. Replications in Economics: A progress report. Econ Journal Watch, 12(2), pp. 164-191.         [ Links ]

Goodchild van Hilten, L., 2015. Why it's Time to Publish Research "Failures". Science Communication. Available at: <http://www.elsevier.com/connect/ scientists-we-want-your-negative-results-too>.

Granger, C, 1990. General Introduction. In: C.W.J. Granger (comp.). Modelling Economic Series: headings in Econometric Methodology (pp. 1-23). Oxford: Clarendon Press.         [ Links ]

Hendry, D., 1980. Econometrics-alchemy or Science? Económica, 47(188), pp. 387-406.         [ Links ]

National Academy of Sciences, 2002. Access to Research Data in the 21st Century: An Ongoing Dialogue Among Interested Parties Report of a Workshop. Available at: <http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10302.html>.         [ Links ]