Replication Data Sets and Favored-Hypothesis Bias

Jeremy Freese makes the case for data sharing as a condition of publication for quantitative research in sociology, and Gary King tells us of a Dataverse Network under construction that is designed to routinize the process of posting and storing such data sets. No matter how user-friendly that network turns out to be, it is clear that no system is entirely cost-free, either for researchers or for journal editors. It is important, then, to determine whether the benefits of mandatory data sharing (or ``data relinquishment,'' as Herrnson calls it) would outweigh the costs. In this comment, the author discusses the issue from his vantage point as a former editor and concludes that the benefits of such a requirement most likely would exceed the costs.