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First, I establish that unbiasedness as a requirement on the estimation of the average treatment effect can align researchers' preferences with the minimization of the mean\u2010squared error relative to the truth, and that fixing the bias can yield an optimal restriction in a minimax sense. Second, I provide a constructive characterization of treatment\u2010effect estimators with fixed bias as sample\u2010splitting procedures. Third, I discuss the implementation of second\u2010best estimators that leave room for beneficial specification searches.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3982\/ecta18640","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,12]],"date-time":"2025-09-12T08:58:58Z","timestamp":1757667538000},"page":"1779-1810","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":5,"title":["Optimal Estimation When Researcher and Social Preferences Are Misaligned"],"prefix":"10.3982","volume":"93","author":[{"given":"Jann","family":"Spiess","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Graduate School of Business, Stanford University"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"2359","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025]]},"reference":[{"key":"ecta200814-bib-0001","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Anderson, Michael L., and Jeremy Magruder (2017): \u201cSplit-Sample Strategies for Avoiding False Discoveries,\u201d NBER working paper.","DOI":"10.3386\/w23544"},{"issue":"5","key":"ecta200814-bib-0002","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2117","DOI":"10.3982\/ECTA18155","volume":"89","author":"Andrews","year":"2021","journal-title":"Econometrica"},{"key":"ecta200814-bib-0003","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Aronow, Peter M., and Joel A. 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