I do some work in this line of literature. There are quite a few papers (in economics and epidemiology) out there using family rupture, so to me that is not the novel part of the paper.
The main contribution of the AER paper is on the long-term mental illness part. Birth outcomes have been examined frequently.
I do some work in this line of literature. There are quite a few papers (in economics and epidemiology) out there using family rupture, so to me that is not the novel part of the paper.
The main contribution of the AER paper is on the long-term mental illness part. Birth outcomes have been examined frequently.
Yet Persson and Rossin-Slater claimed family rupture was "a new measure of the intensity of stress exposure." They also claimed birth outcomes was one of their "primary contributions."
Focusing on long-term mental illness is fine, and it is a contribution as far as I know. But it's clear that Persson and Rossin-Slater grossly oversold the novelty and total contribution of their paper. Like Kearney and Levine, this doesn't deserve to be in AER or any top 5.
What a retard. No wonder American Academia is now the absolute safe space for the Mediocre.
The really smart should just stay outside.
Let me introduce you all to a new way of thinking. There are really smart people
and then there is mediocrity. That is how the world gets to be what it is.
Great catch by OP.
This is yet another example of why economists shouldn't write papers about topics outside of economics, and especially why economics journals should not accept papers from topics outside of economics.
Well my question is still "how do we hold the referees accountable"? Its clear that there either is grave incompetence or shady business involved and referees are supposed to be the guardians that pick up on that s**t. If a referee is not up to the task then then he either needs to excuse themselves or be punished when they do a bad job. Its almost like the referees chosen for this task were chosen specifically to be incompetent or ordered to be incompetent.
Petra herself is an AER referee.
Well my question is still "how do we hold the referees accountable"? Its clear that there either is grave incompetence or shady business involved and referees are supposed to be the guardians that pick up on that s**t. If a referee is not up to the task then then he either needs to excuse themselves or be punished when they do a bad job. Its almost like the referees chosen for this task were chosen specifically to be incompetent or ordered to be incompetent.
Speculation about whether the authors were fraudulent and/or negligent is misplaced. The real problem is that the current publication institutional structure means the top journals will be overloaded with papers that "slipped through."
That's because
(1a) journal ranking is considered more important than other metrics of research importance, and
(1b) the top 5 journals are given a very high premium relative to the next tier. Also
(2) novelty and positive results are rewarded out of proportion to their importance for the advancement of science
As a research consumer, I've updated my own priors so that the important publication margin is between "credible journal" and "never heard of it," not among variosu tiers of prestige. And I assume that positive results are probably some mix of p-value-hunting and dumb luck until the evidence is overwhelming.
Petra herself is an AER referee.
Well my question is still "how do we hold the referees accountable"? Its clear that there either is grave incompetence or shady business involved and referees are supposed to be the guardians that pick up on that s**t. If a referee is not up to the task then then he either needs to excuse themselves or be punished when they do a bad job. Its almost like the referees chosen for this task were chosen specifically to be incompetent or ordered to be incompetent.
Are you saying that this was a favor for a favor? i.e. she was nice on somebody else's referee report so that they would be nice on her report?
This is yet another example of why economists shouldn't write papers about topics outside of economics, and especially why economics journals should not accept papers from topics outside of economics.There it goes 90% of health economics research.
Maybe the term "health economics" is a misnomer and you should think carefully about how you use the term "economics"