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One of my empirical-work econ takes is that I think academia should be *more* open to publishing work based on best-we-can-do weak data, as long as there's really no other way to address the question and that work is very clear about what it can and can't actually say.

Like we don't need a weak entry on what the returns to education are. But there are a ton of questions where something suggestive or with iffy identification would be a clear plus relative to what we have. But this is very hard to publish. Lampposts and lost keys and all that.

The obvious downside is that those results can then be distributed further and taken as more definitive than they deserve.