Unlocking the Black Box of Published Research
Replicating an academic study is a true test of empirical skill, but it’s fraught with challenges. Our specialists meticulously reconstruct and validate published findings, providing you with the clean code and clear report needed for your thesis or publication.
Why Won't Your Results Match the Paper?
Your professor has assigned it, or it’s the foundation of your thesis chapter: replicate a key paper in your field. You downloaded the data and set to work, only to hit a wall. The results in your output look nothing like the perfectly formatted tables in the journal.
This is the frustrating reality of replication:
Vague Methodologies: Papers often omit small but crucial data cleaning steps or model specifications.
Missing or Buggy Code: Authors rarely provide code. When they do, it’s often undocumented, written for an obsolete software version, or simply doesn’t run.
Data Mismatches: The public-use dataset you found might differ slightly from the confidential or proprietary version the original authors used.
Forensic Workload: You’re spending all your time being a “research detective,” trying to guess the authors’ steps, instead of focusing on your own contribution.
Replication is not a simple coding task; it’s a complex reverse-engineering project.
We Systematically Reconstruct, Verify, and Document
Our Replication Study service is a rigorous, forensic process designed to produce a successful and understandable replication. We treat each study like a case to be solved, delivering a complete package that empowers your own research.
Meticulous Deconstruction: We begin with a deep dive into the paper’s methodology section, data appendix, and footnotes to create a detailed replication plan.
Clean-Room Code Development: We write new, clean, and extensively commented code from scratch in your preferred software (Stata, R, Python). This ensures you understand every single line.
Transparent Discrepancy Reporting: If we can’t perfectly match the results (a common outcome), we don’t just give up. We investigate and document the likely causes, such as data differences or methodological ambiguity.
Foundation for Extension: Our deliverable isn’t a dead end. It’s a robust, working model that you can confidently use as a launchpad for your own extensions—testing a new variable, using a different time period, or applying an alternative technique.
Everything You Need to Understand and Extend the Research
We deliver a turnkey folder containing all the assets required for a successful replication project.
Your Deliverable Package Contains:
The Cleaned Dataset(s): The final, analysis-ready data file(s) used in the replication.
Data Preparation Script: A fully-commented script showing every step taken to get from the raw data to the cleaned dataset.
Master Analysis Script: The main, fully-commented script that runs all the models and generates all the key tables and figures from the paper.
Complete Log File: The raw, unedited console output from the software, showing the code being executed and the results it produced.
Replicated Tables & Figures: The core results (regression tables, summary statistics) exported into a format compatible with Word (.rtf) or LaTeX (.tex), along with high-resolution image files for figures.
The Replication Report: A comprehensive PDF document that serves as your guide. It includes:
An overview of the replication strategy.
A side-by-side comparison of the original and replicated results.
A detailed discussion of any discrepancies found and their likely causes.
An explanation of any assumptions that had to be made due to ambiguity in the original paper.
Optional Extension Service:
Once the replication is complete, we can work with you to:
Add new variables to the model.
Apply the model to a different country or time period.
Test the robustness of the findings using alternative estimation techniques.