A Lack of Robustness in Robustness Checking from Auspurg and Brüderl
In a comment on our work on ideological bias in the production of research findings (Borjas and Breznau 2026), Auspurg and Brüderl argue that our findings are based on “fragile evidence” and contain a “coding error” that, when corrected, removes the statistically significant results we presented (Auspurg and Brüderl 2026). In this response we address each of their claims carefully. In our published paper, we explicitly acknowledged the limitations of our findings which are based on secondary data and a small sample. After examining Auspurg and Brüderl’s claims, we conclude that they have not presented any new evidence that warrants any correction to our conclusions. Furthermore, we find that some of their claims—such as the claim that the paper contains a “coding error”—are simply false.
This paper responds to:
Auspurg, K., and J. Brüderl. 2026. Fragile Evidence for an Ideological Bias in the Production of Research Findings: Comment on Borjas and Breznau. I4R Discussion Paper Series No. 303. Institute for Replication.