Policy for Papers Conducting Experiments and Collecting Primary Data

 


For experimental papers and papers that collect primary data via surveys, additional rules apply. We normally expect authors of such articles to supply the following supplementary materials, in addition to the materials required by the standard Data and Code Availability Policy. Any exceptions to this policy should be requested at the time of submission.


Original Instructions

The original instructions for the experiment or survey should be summarized in the submitted manuscript as part of the discussion of the experimental or survey design and should be provided in full as an appendix at the time of submission. Instructions should convey the protocol clearly enough that the design could be replicated by a reasonably skilled experimentalist or survey specialist.

Subject Selection

Information about subject eligibility or selection, such as exclusions based on past participation in experiments, college major, demographic characteristics, etc., should be summarized as part of the discussion of design in the submitted manuscript.

Software and Scripts

Any computer programs, configuration files, or scripts used to run the experiment or develop the survey instrument, e.g., z-Tree code, Qualtrics, and LimeSurvey, shall be provided. These should be summarized as appropriate in the submitted manuscript and deposited in the AEA Data and Code Repository. All requirements noted in the AEA Data and Code Availability Policy for programs apply.

Where appropriate, human-readable versions of the experiment or instrument (PDF of questionnaire) shall also be provided.

Raw Data

The raw data from the experiment or survey should be summarized as appropriate in the submitted manuscript and deposited in the AEA Data and Code Repository, compliant with any confidentiality protections that apply.

We strongly suggest that the deposit separates the raw data and instructions from other replication materials, in order to provide greater visibility to the author's work.

Analysis Programs

All requirements for final and intermediate data files, as well as cleaning and analysis programs, as per the general Data and Code Availability Policy, continue to apply.