Infographic Conflicts of Interest Erode Trust in Research

Academicians’ conflicts of interest can damage trust in their work, according to a study team that includes Chicago Booth research professional Shashank Singh and Booth’s Luigi Zingales. Through surveys of economists and a representative sample of the general public, they find that a conflict decreases trust in an economic paper’s conclusions by an average of 28 percent. When the researchers calculated a full “conflict-of-interest discount,” which also takes into account the frequency of conflicts, they find that conflicted papers are on average worth 39 percent less than nonconflicted ones. 

But transparency could help build trust by making clear when researchers have minimized conflicts, the study finds. When a disclosure revealed that a data provider had the right to review results presented in the paper, survey respondents’ trust in the conclusions fell by about half. But when a disclosure made clear that a provider had waived that right, respondents’ trust increased by 12 percent, on average. This is an argument for fewer conflicts but also more disclosure, according to the researchers, who write that conflicted papers should be discounted in literature reviews, academic promotions, and legal cases.