{"id":33214,"date":"2013-04-16T17:45:07","date_gmt":"2013-04-16T23:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/16\/the-excel-error-that-drove-economic-policy-off-a-cliff.html"},"modified":"2013-04-17T09:09:58","modified_gmt":"2013-04-17T15:09:58","slug":"the-excel-error-that-drove-economic-policy-off-a-cliff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/16\/the-excel-error-that-drove-economic-policy-off-a-cliff.html","title":{"rendered":"The Excel error that drove economic policy off a cliff"},"content":{"rendered":"
It's useful to show your work, because then people can point out errors in it. \u00a0Such as Excel range miscalculations that skew your results.<\/p>\n

That would seem a relatively trivial thing, except that Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff's paper "Growth in a Time of Debt" (2010) is cited all over the \u00a0
place by the GOP (including prominently and persistently by Paul Ryan) as proof that high public debt as a percent of GDP destroys all economic growth (and, in fact, produces negative growth on average). Thus, they say, we must practice austerity in order to starve a fever, or something like that.<\/p>\n

But a new paper by some folks who finally got a chance to look at Reinhart and Rogoff's data and spreadsheets finds all sorts of dubious exclusions and groupings of data, and at least one presumably unintentional one — excluding several countries from the analysis.<\/p>\n

While running the numbers correctly doesn't indicate that running a high public debt is a great thing, it shows the effect are much less negative, on average, than has been touted. And it bolsters arguments that, in times of economic distress, running a short-term deficit could have some significant benefits.<\/p>\n

(Reinhart and Rogoff respond at\u00a0http:\/\/goo.gl\/zYBhb<\/a> … their answer seems to be, "Well, it's still a bad thing, and there have been other papers that agree with us, and we're publishing a new paper soon so hang on." No commentary on the Excel range mistake. Um, whatever.)<\/div>\n

\n

\n \n <\/div>\n

Shocking Paper Claims That Microsoft Excel Coding Error Is Behind The Reinhart-Rogoff Study On Debt<\/a>
\n This could be huge.\n <\/p>\n


This post has been reshared 2 times on Google+<\/a>
<\/span> View this post on Google+<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It's useful to show your work, because then people can point out errors in it. \u00a0Such as Excel range miscalculations that skew your results. That would seem a relatively trivial thing, except that Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff's paper "Growth in a Time of Debt" (2010) is cited all over the \u00a0place by the GOP … Continue reading “The Excel error that drove economic policy off a cliff”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","category-economy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":39050,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/10\/04\/is-john-boehner-willing-to-drive-us-over-a-cliff-maybe.html","url_meta":{"origin":33214,"position":0},"title":"Is John Boehner willing to drive us over a cliff? Maybe","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 4-Oct-13 11:23am","format":false,"excerpt":"Or maybe not. \u00a0Today, regarding the 17 October deadline for raising the debt limit before we simply cannot pay our government's bills, he said:'I don\u2019t believe that we should default on our debt. It\u2019s not good for our country.'Okay, that's promising.'_But ...'_Uh-oh.' ... after 55 years of spending more than\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5788,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/07\/18\/frankensteins_e.html","url_meta":{"origin":33214,"position":1},"title":"Frankenstein’s #ERROR","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 18-Jul-04 1:56pm","format":false,"excerpt":"US geneticists are having big problems with data stored in Excel. The problem, which can cause medically important genes to be hidden from view, is widespread, and has affected some...","rel":"","context":"In "Hi-Tech"","block_context":{"text":"Hi-Tech","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/hi-tech"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":22540,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/09\/08\/gop-lying-talking-points-for-the-2012-election-collect-the-whole-set.html","url_meta":{"origin":33214,"position":2},"title":"GOP Lying Talking Points for the 2012 Election (Collect the Whole Set!)","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 8-Sep-11 9:23pm","format":false,"excerpt":"This was originally titled \"Mitch McConnell is a Dolt (You Lie! Edition),\" but I thought this title would be more search-worthy. That Sen. Mitch McConnell -- GOP leader in the Senate -- is a partisan hack almost goes without saying. \u00a0But he's now chimed in on the Senate Floor with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Dolts"","block_context":{"text":"Dolts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/dolts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/pubprivtrend811.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/pubprivtrend811.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/pubprivtrend811.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":28586,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/07\/15\/do-social-entitlements-destroy-a-countrys-economic-strength.html","url_meta":{"origin":33214,"position":3},"title":"Do social entitlements destroy a country's economic strength?","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 15-Jul-12 10:51am","format":false,"excerpt":"Not so one could see comparing GDP growth vs social spending as a percent of GDP. (h\/t +Jim Feig) Embedded Link The Myth That Entitlements Destroy a Nation's Growth, Busted in 1 Chart None of Europe's seven biggest welfare states are in a death spiral. Neither are we. Google+: View\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11490,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/08\/15\/excel_hiccups.html","url_meta":{"origin":33214,"position":4},"title":"Excel hiccups","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 15-Aug-07 11:11am","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm sure I read something about this somewhere, sometime, but damned if I can figure out where. My Excel installation has suddenly decided that it's going to pause every minute...","rel":"","context":"In "My Computer"","block_context":{"text":"My Computer","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/my-computer"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":32075,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/01\/05\/the-macroeconomics-of-middle-earth-hobbit-edition.html","url_meta":{"origin":33214,"position":5},"title":"The Macroeconomics of Middle-earth (Hobbit Edition)","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 5-Jan-13 1:00pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Brilliant indeed. And don't miss the discussion in the comments.Reshared post from +Lucas WimanThis is brilliant:\"The full economic impact of Smaug can only be understood by recognizing that the dragon's arrival resulted in a severe monetary shock. On the left is shown Smaug's hoard. On the right, for purposes of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33214"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33219,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33214\/revisions\/33219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}