**John Quiggin**

School of Economics, The University of Queensland, St Lucia QLD 4072, Australia; j.quiggin@uq.edu.au

Received: 30 September 2019; Accepted: 18 November 2019; Published: 24 November 2019

**Abstract:** This paper begins with the observation that the constrained maximisation central to model estimation and hypothesis testing may be interpreted as a kind of profit maximisation. The output of estimation is a model that maximises some measure of model fit, subject to costs that may be interpreted as the shadow price of constraints imposed on the model. The replication crisis may be regarded as a market failure in which the price of "significant" results is lower than would be socially optimal.

**Keywords:** replication crisis; profit maximization; market failure
