Illuminating Science's File Drawer: A Field Experiment

Scientists routinely leave findings undisclosed. This "file drawer" of science distorts the evidence base and misallocates R&D spending. Yet there is almost no research on how to recover filedrawered findings. We will run a field experiment to study incentives to increase disclosure. We will target authors likely to have findings in the file drawer -- whose studies Cochrane reviewers flagged as relevant but did not obtain, plus trial registry entries and conference abstracts with no published paper. A pilot will test financial incentives, logistical support, and coauthorship credit as incentives; the full experiment focuses on financial incentives. We randomize roughly 2,500 findings to (A) a control condition (a request plus an AI pre-filled 1-2 page "micro-report"), (B) an added $100 honorarium, or (C) an added $300 honorarium. The primary outcome is submission of a usable micro-report after three months. We also track recovery rates, whether recovered findings are null or contradict the systematic review, and downstream citations of the micro-reports. These results will generate knowledge on how to illuminate the file drawer. One concrete outcome is a supply curve for filedrawered findings, which offers firms a new way to pay for evidence.