A Scarcity Literature Mischaracterized with an Empirical Audit

O’Donnell et al. (“ODAL”) (1) claim to audit the “scarcity literature” through a series of replications. Although we applaud the audit’s goals, we found serious issues that invalidate its conclusions. Notably, the paper fails as an audit of the scarcity literature. (1) It includes studies that are not about resource scarcity and even studies that are not about scarcity at all. (2) It fails to implement its own stated selection criteria. (3) It contains analysis errors. (4) Methodological issues make several of the replications untrue to the original. These issues affect at least 11 out of their 20 studies (see Figure 1, for a detailed discussion, see 2), calling into question the overall conclusions.