Tyler Cowen is bored by talk about standards of integrity

Tyler Cowen reacts to the calls from Mark Kleiman, Glenn Reynolds and Randy Barnett for a panel to investigate Lott's conduct:

My first reaction is to suggest that we already have such a panel every time John, or anyone else, submits a manuscript to a refereed journal on the topic.

Cowen seems to believe that the purpose of the panel would be to investigate whether Lott was correct in his "More guns, Less Crime" research. There is already a panel examining that question. It is the National Academy of Sciences panel on firearms research. Lott mounted a preemptive attack on the panel, accusing the members in general and Steve Levitt in particular of anti-gun bias. No, what is needed is an investigation into the question of whether Lott's conduct is ethical. In particular:

  • he almost certainly fabricated a mysterious survey and certainly behaved unethically in making claims for which he had no supporting data
  • he presented results purporting to show that "more guns" led to "less crime" when those results were the product of coding errors and then tried to conceal the fact that his results were the product of coding errors by changing his model

Cowen then says that "market-oriented economists" believe that even if Lott's work is fraudulent:

  • John, at the very least, did show: "More guns, not nearly as much more crime as had been thought." This was a real contribution and it holds up.
  • John did not so clearly show "More guns, less crime." "More guns, less crime" conceivably could still be true, but it remains to be demonstrated.

However, if Lott's work is fraudulent then he has shown nothing, since we cannot trust any of his findings. Nor should we be confused by his shorthand "More Guns". He studied the effects of concealed carry laws, not the general availability of guns in society. Only a very small percentage of the population obtains permits when they are available so obtaining small effects for carry laws is not surprising and does not imply that guns in general do not have large effects either beneficial or harmful.

I also recommend Mark Kleiman's excellent post on why the character of the researcher matters, especially when doing econometrics.

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