Publication bias of economic sanctions research: A Meta-analysis of the impact of trade linkage, duration and prior relations on sanctions success

Despite more than three decades of empirical research using datasets with large numbers of cases for economic sanctions no consensus has emerged on the sign and size of the impact of the key variables that theoretically determine the success of economic sanctions. We meta-analyse 37 primary studies on determinants of the effectiveness of economic sanctions published over the years 1985-2018, using the Protocol of the Meta-Analysis in Economics Research-network (MAER-Net).
We investigate the impact of trade linkage, sanction duration and prior relations on sanction success. While the descriptive analysis and weighted averages suggest that the impact of the three variables of interest is significant and conforms to a priori theoretical expectations, our econometric analysis uncovers significant publication bias in the results. Bias is significant and large for the three variables of interest and the genuine impact of these variables on success and failure of sanctions after correction for publication bias is insignificant. Moreover, we find that bias in this literature increases over time. We suggest that a methodological alternative for the existing large-N data needs to be developed and that therefore individual country studies should be stimulated. Meta-analysis and other forms of research synthesis could be used to determine the meta-effect based on these primary studies.