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AbstractThis article uses the framework of Ioannidis () to organise a discussion of issues related to the 'reproducibility crisis'. It then goes on to use that framework to evaluate various proposals to fix the problem. Of particular interest is the 'post‐study probability', the probability that a reported research finding represents a true relationship. This probability is inherently unknowable. However, a number of insightful results emerge if we are willing to make some conjectures about reasonable parameter values. Among other things, this analysis demonstrates the important role that replication can play in improving the signal value of empirical research.

This paper extends the performance‐based voting models of Barro (1973), Ferejohn (1986), and Austen‐Smith and Banks (1990) by including heterogeneous politicians. The introduction of heterogeneous politicians has three major implications. First, the act of voting must now simultaneously address both "moral hazard" and "adverse selection" problems. Accordingly, this paper demonstrates that voters will usually have to trade off the twin goals of (i) securing the optimal performance from a given type of politician, and (ii) insuring that only the best types of politicians are selected to office. Second, both equilibrium reelection rates and the tenure‐performance relationship are shown to depend on the value of holding office. For example, when the value of holding political office is large relative to other employment opportunities. incumbents will experience very high reelection rates: and longer‐serving politicians will perform poorer, on average, than shorter‐serving politicians. Finally, we demonstrate the surprising result that increased heterogeneity of politicians can make voters worse off.

This paper develops a methodology for calculating the expected completed lengths of U.S. congressmen's stays in office. In addition, it demonstrates how this methodology can be used to forecast the seniority structure of future Congresses. One of the major empirical findings of this paper is that it demonstrates the deficiencies of using "mean term" to make inferences about the expected length of congressmen's stays.