why the 'spread sheet scandal' should kill obama's social security cut

[caraher]

13. Interesting piece, but it understates the badness of the Harvard conclusions

By failing to include certain spreadsheet cells in its calculations, the study by Harvard economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff may have overstated the impact that debt burdens have on a nation’s economic growth.

Worse - it claimed an impact where none exists, which is very different from merely overestimating a real effect.

Panko's paper is interesting... it looks like the best way to reduce spreadsheet errors is by having lots of people look at a given spreadsheet. Which is what ultimately uncovered the error in R&R.

Of course, Dean Baker chided them as unprofessional in 2010 when they're paper came out for not being transparent with their data. I'll never know for certain, but I wouldn't be shocked if that were by design. And (he says in tinfoil hat mode) maybe they only released it to a lowly grad student because they didn't think he'd find out the problem...

But I don't really believe that; more likely R&R feel prey to the biggest hazard of research, fooling yourself. When a result contradicts your expectations the instinct is to dig deeper, but when it confirms them there's a strong tendency to just accept them uncritically. It's the stuff that bolsters their own beliefs that truth-seekers need to place under the most careful scrutiny!