Article by Yale Insights: “Let’s say you see an interesting headline about new research, suggesting that a ride-share service reduced traffic jams in cities. You click the link, scroll down the article, and then discover that the study authors based their results on private data from the ride-share company itself. How much would that disclosure dampen your trust in the finding?
Quite a bit, according to a new study co-authored by Prof. John Barrios. On average, the use of private data decreased people’s trust in economic results by one-fifth. And that’s a problem for economists, who often rely on these data sets to fuel their studies.
“That’s the lifeblood of modern economic research,” Barrios says. “But it also creates a tension: the very data that let us answer new questions can make our work seem less independent.” His team’s study suggested that other conflicts, such as accepting consulting fees from companies and ideological biases, also substantially lowered trust.
When conflicts undermine credibility, studies lose some of their power to shape public policy decisions. “We engage in creating knowledge, and that marketplace of ideas runs on the currency of trust,” he says. “Once that trust erodes, so too does our research in impacting the world around us.”..(More)”. See also: “The Conflict-of-Interest Discount in the Marketplace of Ideas”
