Coding error influences public policy
Originally at https://metascience.shaunagm.net/post/48134942899/coding-error-influences-public-policy
There’s an op ed in the New York Times about how a coding error in an economics article may have had profoundly negative influence on economic policy:
The other paper, which has had immense influence — largely because in the VSP world it is taken to have established a definitive result — was Reinhart/Rogoff on the negative effects of debt on growth. Very quickly, everyone “knew” that terrible things happen when debt passes 90 percent of GDP.
Some of us never bought it, arguing that the observed correlation between debt and growth probably reflected reverse causation. But even I never dreamed that a large part of the alleged result might reflect nothing more profound than bad arithmetic.
One can’t help but wonder if the error would have been noticed if the paper had made the raw data and methods available to the public when it was published.