Multiverse Analysis

Cristobal Young is Associate Professor of Sociology at Cornell University. He received his PhD from Princeton University in 2010. His first book, The Myth of Millionaire Tax Flight: How Place Still Matters for the Rich, was published with Stanford University Press in 2017. Erin Cumberworth is a sociologist who studies inequality and public policy. She received her Ph.D. from Stanford University in 2017.

'Science progresses by reducing uncertainty. We assume that most of that uncertainty is from the world - the samples and circumstances we study. But, some of that uncertainty is from us - our decisions about how to analyze and draw inferences from data. Multiverse Analysis exposes the unrecognized uncertainty from analytic decisions and provides a systematic approach to incorporating it into the process of investigation and discovery. With richly described case examples, Young and Cumberworth provide a comprehensive philosophical and practical guide to understanding and using multiverse analysis. After reading this book, you will be much more expert in what we don't know, and what to do about it.' Brian Nosek, Executive Director, Center for Open Science, Professor, University of Virginia

• Part I. Introduction: 1. The Many Worlds of Analysis; 2. The Multiverse as a Philosophy of Science; Part II. The Computational Multiverse: 3. Hurricane Names: An Applied Introduction; 4. The Multiverse Algorithm; 5. Empirical Multiverses; 6. Influence Analysis and Scope Conditions; 7. Good and Bad Controls; 8. Some Alternative Approaches; Part III. Expanding the Multiverse: 9. Functional Form Robustness; 10. Data Processing: Invisible Decisions that Matter; 11. A Data-Processing Multiverse: Re-Analysis of Regnerus (2012) and Critics; 12. Retractions in Social Science: Mis-Adventures in Data Processing; 13. Weights in the Multiverse; 14. Conclusion; Appendix: Coding with MULTIVRS in Stata.