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So I was thinking of picking up this book on your recommendation. However, the names seemed vaguely familiar to me already, which reminded me of the scandal whe

So I was thinking of picking up this book on your recommendation. However, the names seemed vaguely familiar to me already, which reminded me of the scandal where some grad student reran numbers from one of their papers, and found that Reinhart and Rogoff had made basic coding errors in Excel (I think Excel?) running the data (as well as cherrypicking data to some extent). When the data was processed correctly, it actually showed the opposite of what Reinhart and Rogoff had argued for. Since I obviously don't have time to fact check all the numbers in their book, and they have a demonstrated history of biased results, I think in the end I'll pass on the book. Just my 2 cents.

NoPiece 12y ago
It is not true that the revised data showed the opposite of what Reinhard and Rogoff argues for. It just showed it to a much lesser degree. The New Yorker wrote a fair but critical analysis: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2013/04/the-rogoff-and-reinhart-controversy-a-summing-up.html http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2013/04/th...
BSousa 12y ago
Was this the same data that was used by IMF and the rest to justify the push the austerity measures on the troubled economies in Europe? I remember there was a big backlash at the time when the numbers came to light but nothing changed anyway (maybe the save face issue above)
- eli_gottlieb 12y ago
  >Was this the same data that was used by IMF and the rest to justify the push the austerity measures on the troubled economies in Europe? Yes.
rquantz 12y ago
My understanding of it is that Rogoff is a great economic historian, but not a great economist. Or something like that. Paul Krugman, for instance, often points out that it's sad R&R are so consistently wrong about how to handle the current crises, because this book was so good. So the book may be worth reading in spite of the bad research they've been attached to since.

NoPiece 12y ago

It is not true that the revised data showed the opposite of what Reinhard and Rogoff argues for. It just showed it to a much lesser degree. The New Yorker wrote a fair but critical analysis: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2013/04/the-rogoff-and-reinhart-controversy-a-summing-up.html http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2013/04/th...

BSousa 12y ago

Was this the same data that was used by IMF and the rest to justify the push the austerity measures on the troubled economies in Europe? I remember there was a big backlash at the time when the numbers came to light but nothing changed anyway (maybe the save face issue above)

eli_gottlieb 12y ago
>Was this the same data that was used by IMF and the rest to justify the push the austerity measures on the troubled economies in Europe? Yes.

rquantz 12y ago

My understanding of it is that Rogoff is a great economic historian, but not a great economist. Or something like that. Paul Krugman, for instance, often points out that it's sad R&R are so consistently wrong about how to handle the current crises, because this book was so good. So the book may be worth reading in spite of the bad research they've been attached to since.