The Economics of Quantitative Research

Academics are incentivised by journals through their requirements for publication to look for positive results. And so the result of that is that there's always going to be an element of p-hacking floating around. Just because a paper doesn't get a positive result shouldn't bring me that it's unpublishable. If the economic story is there, then isn't that worth exploring? Isn't that worth talking about through the avenue of journals?