“In 2010, economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff released a paper, “Growth in a Time of Debt.” […] This has been one of the most cited stats in the public debate during the Great Recession. […]

“This error is needed to get the results they published, and it would go a long way to explaining why it has been impossible for others to replicate these results. 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.”

Researchers Finally Replicated Reinhart-Rogoff, and There Are Serious Problems. | Next New Deal, via Dan W.