An economics, investment, trading and policy blog with a focus on Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). We seek the truth, avoid the mainstream and are virulently anti-neoliberalism.
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Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Mike Konczal — Researchers Finally Replicated Reinhart-Rogoff, and There Are Serious Problems
"Serious problems"? RR would be lucky to escape with just an embarrassment over a faulty Excel formula (responsible for a small portion of their result) and not with an outright reputation for cooking their result - such as dropping countries from their datasets, coming up with - should be say - creative ways to weigh the data etc - in other words, scientific fraud.
From the FAQ Quote: Seven to eight months in advance of the annual January meeting, the American Economic Association's (AEA) President-elect, with the help of a Program Committee, selects the meeting sessions from the proposals received. From among these sessions, the President-elect chooses, at the time of organizing the annual meeting, a number of sessions to be printed in the Papers and Proceedings volume. . . . The Papers and Proceedings issue includes only papers that are presented at the AEA's annual meeting. All papers must first be proposed, accepted, and presented at the AEA's annual meeting.
In other words , the choice of papers to be published in this issue is political, and not based on scientific merit.
All the high minded speeches about positive economics goes out the window when you see they massaged the data to fit their idea and a prescription for the world.
Modern electronic media makes it easy, simple and cheap to release data sets. No reason not to anymore unless they are hiding something. Economics would look very different if everyone released their data and anyone could inspect how they treated it. Very different indeed.
"Serious problems"? RR would be lucky to escape with just an embarrassment over a faulty Excel formula (responsible for a small portion of their result) and not with an outright reputation for cooking their result - such as dropping countries from their datasets, coming up with - should be say - creative ways to weigh the data etc - in other words, scientific fraud.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the article was published in a issue the AER that is not peer reviewed - The American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings Information
ReplyDeleteFrom the FAQ
Quote:
Seven to eight months in advance of the annual January meeting, the American Economic Association's (AEA) President-elect, with the help of a Program Committee, selects the meeting sessions from the proposals received. From among these sessions, the President-elect chooses, at the time of organizing the annual meeting, a number of sessions to be printed in the Papers and Proceedings volume.
.
.
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The Papers and Proceedings issue includes only papers that are presented at the AEA's annual meeting. All papers must first be proposed, accepted, and presented at the AEA's annual meeting.
In other words , the choice of papers to be published in this issue is political, and not based on scientific merit.
All the high minded speeches about positive economics goes out the window when you see they massaged the data to fit their idea and a prescription for the world.
ReplyDeleteModern electronic media makes it easy, simple and cheap to release data sets. No reason not to anymore unless they are hiding something. Economics would look very different if everyone released their data and anyone could inspect how they treated it. Very different indeed.
Champions of neoliberalism, RIP with Niall Ferguson and other clueless people, or seek a job at the IMF (oh wait...).
ReplyDeleteThe rise of power of economics as a 'technocratic knowledge fount' must be one of the worst things that must have happened in the last decades.
Flee from the Academy of Macro Economics!!!!!
ReplyDeleteGet into another Department now!
Read the post I just put up on domestic propaganda as social control and go figure.
ReplyDelete