Reinhart-Rogoff Error Sparks Austerity Debate

[sabaku_no_gaara]

"We replicate Reinhart and Rogoff and find that coding errors, selective exclusion of available data, and unconventional weighting of summary statistics lead to serious errors that inaccurately represent the relationship between public debt and GDP (gross domestic product) growth among 20 advanced economies in the post-war period," economists Thomas Herndon, Michael Ash, and Robert Pollin of the University of Massachusetts said in the new report on Tuesday.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100648042

Interesting, I don't know if we have to take a new look at austerity though since there's still slower economic growth when countries are riddled with debt, but it's not negative growth as the original study concluded.

[removeduser_487563287433]

Worth noting immediately that the authors have said that they do not believe the error changes their findings or the work.

[sabaku_no_gaara]

Sort of yes, there is still slower growth, but they did make a serious error and they ommitted some data, wich is not a good thing to do unless you want to influence your results, with all the scandals of the recent years of academics forging results inventing data manipulating data etc... I'm inclined to suspect they had a certain view and then made their data work to confirm their own views.

There's a difference between growth slowing to 2.2% or growth becomming -0.1%

Thousands of peoples lives are being ruined based on their study we shouldn't let them get off lightly.


Here's a better article by the BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22223190

[Ludicus]

sabaku_no_gaara

There's a difference between growth slowing to 2.2% or growth becomming -0.1%Thousands of peoples lives are being ruined based on their study we shouldn't let them get off lightly.

Precisely,that´s the point.Reinhart - Rogoff book is the Portuguese austerity bible.
From the news,

"Professors Rogoff and Reinhart admitted on Wednesday that an “accidental” omission of countries from the first five letters of the alphabet from one data series led to the average growth rates of the economies it surveyed being depressed"

[mongrel]

Worth noting immediately that the authors have said that they do not believe the error changes their findings or the work.

You are right , but only because mere observation tells us that the whole austerity theory is crocked.

[Denny Crane!]

Discussing Austerity in the UK and Austerity in the southern Europe zone are two totally different things and shouldn't even be mentioned in the same topic as the scenarios are so wildly different as to bear no comparison.

[HissingNewt]

Discussing Austerity in the UK and Austerity in the southern Europe zone are two totally different things and shouldn't even be mentioned in the same topic as the scenarios are so wildly different as to bear no comparison.

Could you explain that a bit please? I'm not very familiar with the European attempts at austerity.