Chicken or Egg? Part II
I am entering a new era on this blog. I am now recycling post titles. Back in 2020, I wrote a post called Chicken or Egg? The subject of that post was on the importance of specifying a model before specifying the estimator. The subject of this post is different, but no less important. It is a mistake I have seen countless Ph.D. students make, especially when entering the research arena for the first time. Conversations with said students usually go something like this: Student: I think I have an idea for a paper. Elder Researcher: Okay. Student: But, I'm not sure it will work. My response to this is always the same. Elder Researcher: What do you mean by "work"? And the student's answer is always the same. Student: I'm not sure I will find something statistically significant. And ... gotcha. At this point, you might think this post is about the value of null effects. To some extent that's true. But that is reall