Knowledge that Transforms

A model of price leadership is used to estimate the welfare losses due to monopoly in U.S. manufacturing. Given that the leaders behave independently, an hypothesis confirmed empirically, the deadweight loss is estimated at 0.114 percent of GNP based on a sample of 445 four-digit industries.

This paper examines the role of replication in empirical economic research. It presents the findings of a two-year study that collected programs and data from authors and attempted to replicate their published results. Our research provides new and important information about the extent and causes of failures to replicate published results in economics. Our findings suggest that inadvertent errors in published empirical articles are a commonplace rather thana rare occurrence.