Is There A Replication Crisis In Finance

Several papers argue that financial economics faces a replication crisis because the majority of studies cannot be replicated or are the result of multiple testing of too many factors. We develop and estimate a Bayesian model of factor replication, which leads to different conclusions. The majority of asset pricing factors: (1) can be replicated, (2) can be clustered into 13 themes, the majority of which are significant parts of the tangency portfolio, (3) work out-of-sample in a new large data set covering 93 countries, and (4) have evidence that is strengthened (not weakened) by the large number of observed factors. Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.