Merijn Knibbe — The Reinhart and Rogoff defense of their work is riddled with mistakes, too

Economists are proud of their advanced mathematical and quantitative methods. The already classic Herndon, Ash and Pollin paper however pointed out mayor flaws and mistakes in basic arithmetic in the influential work of Reinhart and Rogoff on the relation between debt and growth.

Mistakes with ’non-trivial’ implications for their conclusions and present economic policy. Reinhart and Rogoff responded to this – but to an extent this response only made matters worse, see also this Krugman blogpost. As is also pointed out in a new response by Ash (which we can publish here courtesy of the German Handelsblatt), who shows that the Reinhart and Rogoff defense (see below) crucially misquotes and misrepresents their own work.

Real-World Economics Review Blog
The Reinhart and Rogoff defense of their work is riddled with mistakes, too
Merijn Knibbe