The new rule in economics: One star is p < 0.20, two stars is a set of steak knives, three stars is you're fired.

Someone pointed me to a series of applied economics papers: 1. George Borjas and Nate Breznau, Ideological bias in the production of research findings: Our study exploits an opportunity to observe 158 researchers working independently in 71 teams during an experiment. After being asked their position on immigration policy, they used the same data to answer the same empirical question: Does immigration affect public support for social welfare programs? . . . teams composed of pro-immigration researchers estimated more positive impacts of immigration on public support for social programs, while anti-immigration teams estimated more negative impacts. The differences arise because different teams adopted different model specifications. . . The results include an unusual labeling of statistical significance: Usually it’s one star for p < 0.05, two stars for p < 0.01, as here: or here: These are not intended to be authoritative references; they just turned up in a quick search. The point is…