Post-Publication Review of Faridani, Testing for Underpowered Literatures

Replicability-Index · Sep 15, 2026

Faridani, S. (2026). Testing for underpowered literatures. Journal of Econometrics, 257, 106312. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeconom.2026.106312

Abstract

Faridani (2026) introduces a nonparametric deconvolution method for estimating how much the proportion of statistically significant results would increase if studies used larger samples. The method is innovative because it avoids specifying a parametric distribution of true effects and can accommodate publication bias and point masses at zero. However, the estimand is an unconditional increase in significance rates, not statistical power…