Registered Reports and Associated Benefits for Agricultural Economics

Abstract

The distribution of published scientific evidence is biased. There is accumulating evidence of the frequent use of questionable publishing practices and questionable research practices, and current solutions are limited (e.g., pre-registration). This has important undesirable consequences for policy-oriented areas such as agricultural economics. In this article, we discuss a potential solution: Registered Reports. We first provide an overview of the Registered Report publication format. We demonstrate how Registered Reports outperform pre-registration, while also efficiently contributing to reducing questionable research practices, canceling questionable publishing practices, and providing more reliable results that can inform evidence-based policymaking. Second, we present a benchmark of Registered Reports in economics today and discuss potential barriers using survey data from economic journal editors. Lastly, we highlight the importance of developing the Registered Report publication format in agricultural economics.