Just how soporific is the US Senate primary that is coming to a head tomorrow? The Bay State showdown that’s getting national attention these days is not the sleepy Senate race but a juicy battle over debt ratios and Excel spreadsheet errors that pits economists at Harvard against fellow practitioners of the dismal science UMass Amherst.
At the center of the dispute is a 2010 paper by prominent Harvard economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, which claims to show that once government debt levels reach a certain threshold (debt levels greater than approximately 90 percent of a country’s GDP) they have a sudden stifling effect on economic growth. Their finding has become a powerful piece of evidence put forward by conservatives arguing that countries must rein in government spending to help them climb out of the recent recession.
The Reinhart-Rogoff thesis was suddenly sent off its axis earlier this month when researchers at UMass Amherst released a paper showing that an Excel coding error by the Harvard researchers, along with some other choices they made on which data to include and how to weight it, explained much of the apparent drop-off in economic growth that was claimed to accompany high government debt levels.
What followed has been the faculty meeting equivalent of a barroom brawl, with claims about the direction of causality and “non-standard weighting methodology” hurled back and forth like bar stools and beer mugs. Reinhart and Rogoff’s findings “have served as an intellectual bulwark in support of austerity politics,” write the UMass researchers. “The fact that [their] findings are wrong should therefore lead us to reassess the austerity agenda itself in both Europe and the United States.”
Reinhart and Rogoff took to the New York Times op-ed pages last week to defend themselves, arguing that their coding error did not materially change the overall findings from their work and maintaining that the original paper has been inappropriately interpreted as making an “unambiguous call for austerity.”
Business Insider declared that the austerity movement officially become a laughingstock when Stephen Colbert devoted not just one, but two, segments of his show last Tuesday to ridiculing the Reinhart and Rogoff paper, which has become the focus of almost mythic veneration among everyone from global financial poohbahs to House budget hawk Paul Ryan. Adding to the irresistible David-knocking-down-Goliath storyline is the fact that the lead slayer of the Harvard economists was not even a rival UMass professor but a 28-year-old grad student at the state university, Thomas Herndon, who uncovered their miscues through a term paper assignment that had students attempt to replicate the findings from a prominent piece of research.
Nobel Prize-winner Paul Krugman has had a field day with the kerfuffle, claiming the UMass paper has thoroughly vindicated his position that steady government spending is needed to economies out of recession. “What the Reinhart-Rogoff affair shows is the extent to which austerity has been sold on false pretenses,” wrote Krugman.
Anyone with a media platform and an undergraduate econ course in their past has weighed in, as even have some with more credentials.
Oddly, the Globe has appeared to ignore the whole delicious joust, despite the fact that the spat, which has now gone global, involves researchers at two Massachusetts universities. The UMass student paper, the Daily Collegian, finally joins the fray today with this commentary piece from an econ student there. The Crimson, Harvard’s student newspaper, ran a news story on the dispute last week. Overshadowing the story itself, however, are some of the online comments that poke the paper for going soft on Reinhart and Rogoff over the embarrassing spectacle that has the two Crimson faculty stars turning red.
–MICHAEL JONAS
MARATHON BOMBING
If you need to review the Marathon Bombing story in detail, yesterday’s Globe had this 14,000-word account of the 102 hours from the time of the bombing to the capture of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
News reports suggest Russian authorities taped Tamerlan Tsarnaev speaking of jihad with his mother, NPR reports (via WBUR).
The Washington Post has an excellent profile of the Tsarnaev family.
The New York Review of Books interviews the elusive Misha, who some have said radicalized Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
The bombings highlight the need for a public safety broadband network, Governing reports.
The Globe’s Hiawatha Bray explains why facial recognition software isn’t yet as good as it appears to be on TV crime shows.
The bombings have overshadowed the Senate primary races.
The Beat the Press panel takes a look at the good and bad of news coverage of the bombings, and gives generally high grades to most organizations.
BEACON HILL
The House budget includes a three-step judicial pay raise that would hike a judge’s salary 23 percent by 2015, CommonWealth reports.
Gov. Deval Patrick appeals to the White House to ease fishing restrictions on Gulf of Maine cod, the Gloucester Times reports.
The Globe reports that the number of citations from state authorities for child labor law violations have been dropping in recent years.
MUNICIPAL MATTERS
The Item reports municipal salaries for 2012 in the towns it covers. Police and education officials tend to have the highest salaries; 2012 was a very good year for Swampscott cops, who received lots of paid details for the movie Grown Ups 2.
Attleboro’s embattled redevelopment authority turns a corner.
Despite voter approval in 2010 to explore changing the government structure from Town Meeting to a mayor and city council, Dartmouth officials have made little headway in moving the process along.
A report by the Inspector General that charges the director of the Brockton school facilities department with handing out no-bid contracts to friends and business associates has become a key issue in the city’s mayoral race.
This is awkward: The Carver tax collector, who is also a selectman, lost his money-counter seat to his assistant over the weekend in the town election.
NATIONAL POLITICS/WASHINGTON
President Obama nominates Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx to serve as transportation secretary.
WBUR has an extensive report on the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
Prosecutors make another go in their investigation into ricin letters mailed to the White House and Congress, after the Mississippi Elvis impersonator they arrested turned out to be innocent.
ELECTIONS
Young people aren’t enthused about tomorrow’s US Senate primary election. The whole state GOP, on the other hand, is quite enthused — about the prospect of running against Ed Markey. An interesting decision by Keller@Large to devote his last Sunday show before the special Senate primary to a half-hour sit-down interview with Markey, the poll leader in the Democratic race.
Tomorrow’s state Senate special election primary to fill the seat vacated by South Boston’s Jack Hart is turning into a battle for Dorchester, reports the Globe.
Mitt Romney would have won if the 2012 turnout mirrored the 2004 turnout; but it did not. The reason: African Americans voted in higher numbers than other minorities and exceeded the turnout numbers for white voters for the first time ever.
BUSINESS/ECONOMY
Americans are leaving the workforce in droves, but it’s not because they’ve given up looking for jobs.
One of the two partners overseeing the $1.6 billion redevelopment of downtown Quincy has merged with a New York firm, raising question about what it means for the City of Presidents project.
EDUCATION
An IRS audit of 34 colleges, which were unnamed, found they underpaid taxes on business income by nearly $90 million and an estimated 20 percent of private colleges and universities violated rules governing compensation of executives of nonprofits. Via Chronicle of Philanthropy.
Salem is preparing to launch a pilot summer school program targeting children with special needs and limited English, as well as students from low-income families, the Salem News reports.
TRANSPORTATION
The MBTA launches an express train between Worcester and Boston, with roundtrip service costing $20, NECN reports.
ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT
People with diabetes and others who use syringes and other sharp instruments may be disposing of their materials illegally, unaware of a little known law passed last July that regulates disposal of piercing items.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Lawrence police officials say the number of cars stolen over the last two years has tracked police layoffs, with thefts rising when fewer cops were on the force, the Eagle-Tribune reports.