[R] the joy of spreadsheets (off-topic)

[peter dalgaard]

On Apr 24, 2013, at 20:01 , Thomas Adams wrote:

> One might wonder if the "Excel error" was indeed THAT or perhaps a way to get the desired results, give the other issues in their analysis?

I think I'd reserve that suspicion for what they did with the NZ data:

Growth for 1946-49:  7.7, 11.9, −9.9, and 10.8 
--            1951: -7.6

Those were the 5 years with Debt/GDP > 90%. Obviously, the economy was going up and down like a yoyo. So they retain only the last value, miscode it as -7.9, and give that one year the same weight as decades of positive growth in other countries...


> 
> 
> On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 11:58 AM, peter dalgaard <pdalgd at gmail.com> wrote:
> In case you haven't noticed, this is making the rounds in the media, including a handful of references to R. See e.g.
> 
> http://news.slashdot.org/story/13/04/17/0215211/excel-error-contributes-to-problems-with-austerity-study
> 
> I suppose we can't fortune()'ify anonymous quotes, but I kind of like this exchange:
> 
> "Bacon Bits": "SPSS and R are very good at statistical analysis. Quantrix, MapleSoft, IBM Algorithmics, and other software is for financial data modeling. None of those is particularly appropriate for sharing data in a useful format with peers. Excel is."
> 
> "Hatta": "R is extremely appropriate for sharing data in a useful format with peers. It's completely free for one. But more importantly, it saves every single step of your analysis. Send someone an Excel file, and who knows what they've done to the data. Send someone your R project directory and they can see exactly what you did.
> 
> The problem with sending R files to your peers isn't that the R files aren't useful. It's that your peers aren't."
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Apr 16, 2013, at 19:25 , Sarah Goslee wrote:
> 
> > Given that we occasionally run into problems with comparing Excel
> > results to R results, and other spreadsheet-induced errors, I thought
> > this might be of interest.
> >
> > http://www.nextnewdeal.net/rortybomb/researchers-finally-replicated-reinhart-rogoff-and-there-are-serious-problems
> >
> > The punchline:
> >
> > "If this error turns out to be an actual mistake Reinhart-Rogoff made,
> > well, all I can hope is that future historians note that one of the
> > core empirical points providing the intellectual foundation for the
> > global move to austerity in the early 2010s was based on someone
> > accidentally not updating a row formula in Excel."
> >
> > Ouch.
> >
> > (Note: I know nothing about the site, the author of the article, or
> > the study in question. I was pointed to it by someone else. But if
> > true: highly problematic.)
> >
> > Sarah
> >
> > --
> > Sarah Goslee
> > http://www.functionaldiversity.org
> >
> > ______________________________________________
> > R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
> 
> --
> Peter Dalgaard, Professor
> Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School
> Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
> Phone: (+45)38153501
> Email: pd.mes at cbs.dk  Priv: PDalgd at gmail.com
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
> 
> 
> 

-- 
Peter Dalgaard, Professor,
Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School
Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
Phone: (+45)38153501
Email: pd.mes at cbs.dk  Priv: PDalgd at gmail.com