What is the purpose of pre-analysis plans, and how should they be designed? We model the interaction between an agent who analyzes data and a principal who makes a decision based on agent reports. The agent could be the manufacturer of a new drug, and the principal a regulator deciding whether...

What is the purpose of pre-analysis plans, and how should they be designed? We model the interaction between an agent who analyzes data and a principal who makes a decision based on agent reports. The agent could be the manufacturer of a new drug, and the principal a regulator deciding whether...

What is the purpose of pre-analysis plans, and how should they be designed? We model the interaction between an agent who analyzes data and a principal who makes a decision based on agent reports. The agent could be the manufacturer of a new drug, and the principal a regulator deciding whether...

What is the purpose of pre-analysis plans, and how should they be designed? We model the interaction between an agent who analyzes data and a principal who makes a decision based on agent reports. The agent could be the manufacturer of a new drug, and the principal a regulator deciding whether...

This paper studies the problem of treatment choice between a status quo treatment with a known outcome distribution and an innovation whose outcomes are observed only in a representative finite sample. I evaluate statistical decision rules, which are functions that map sample outcomes into the...