Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
An economics study lodging a 25-page PAP on AEA RCT Registry before the experiment's endline survey.
- Is an instance
A political-science PAP filed with EGAP before access to administrative data.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
A general protocol written after preliminary analyses.
- Not an instance
A study description with no analytical specification.
Editorial commentary
A pre-analysis plan (PAP) is a detailed, time-stamped document that fixes the statistical models, variable definitions and transformations, sample-exclusion rules, and inference procedures an analyst will apply to a dataset, lodged before the analyst has access to the outcome data. PAPs grew out of development and labour economics and political science, where studies frequently rely on secondary administrative data, surveys fielded in stages, or randomised evaluations whose endline data arrive well after the intervention has been designed — contexts where the full experimental protocol required by clinical pre-registration is not always practical, but a locked analysis specification still is.
What sets a PAP apart from a general pre-registration is its level of statistical detail. A typical clinical pre-registration might state a primary outcome and a broad analytic strategy; a PAP in the AEA RCT Registry or with EGAP will often run to many pages specifying exact regression forms, covariate sets, multiple-testing corrections, and how missing data and attrition will be handled. That specificity is the point: it closes off the garden of forking paths at the level where economists and political scientists actually make discretionary choices — not primarily in study design, but in the analysis pipeline applied afterward.
How it differs from pre-registration generally
Every PAP is a pre-registration, but the reverse is not true: a study can be pre-registered (hypotheses and design fixed in advance) without a PAP-level analysis specification, leaving room for legitimate but under-disclosed analytic discretion. Funders and journals in economics and political science that ask specifically for a PAP, rather than accepting a general registration, are asking for that additional layer of commitment. As with any pre-registration, deviations are not forbidden — they must be disclosed and distinguished from the pre-specified confirmatory analysis, typically in a dedicated section of the results.
References
- Olken, 'Promises and Perils of Pre-analysis Plans' (Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2015).
- AEA RCT Registry (socialscienceregistry.org); EGAP registry (egap.org).
Also known as
PAP · analysis pre-registration
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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