There is no such study. It's a well-regarded and popular myth. Laurent Bossavit does a masterful job of researching the origins of this myth (and others) in hi

There is no such study. It's a well-regarded and popular myth. Laurent Bossavit does a masterful job of researching the origins of this myth (and others) in his new book The Leprechauns of Software Engineering, available on LeanPub [1]. [1] http://leanpub.com/leprechauns http://leanpub.com/leprechauns