R-R Apologists and Sumner Still Smarting Over Krugman

    Wow! Today Sumner lashed out at me for pointing out that Hamilton is basically misleading in his allegedly exculpatory piece on R-R. I had written a piece which I linked to Sumner's blog post about R-R.

    http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/04/sumner-and-david-henderson-speak-on-r.html?showComment=1367376524279#c4685763930067218921

    Here's what Sumner had said about Hamilton:

    "I'’ve stayed out of the R&R kerfuffle.  This is partly because I haven’t read their paper, partly because James Hamilton points out that the mistakes were fairly minor, and partly because Matt Yglesias points out that the real issue is causality, which R&R’s study doesn’t resolve."

    http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=20912

    Sumner is right that R-R's work doesn't resolve any casual issues, although I don't remember him complaining about this in the past. When R-R were be treated as economic seers in Congress and the EU would have been the time for that observation.

    This saw though about the mistake being 'fairly minor" is a major moment in R-R apologetics. I then left a comment where I was critical of both Hamilton and Sumner:

     "On Euro debt the difference that Krugman always emphasizes is that the EU countries have given away their printing press so it’s not surprising that countries trouble like Greece, Spain, et. al are seen by the market as having no out thereby spiking interest rates."

   "Krugman pointed out just yesterday that Italy’s interest rates have now come down. Why? Because Draghii credibly promised to do “what ever’s necessary” to save the euro."

     http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/29/the-italian-miracle/

    I  checked out Hamiltion. I think he totally minimizes what the mistake was. Listen that’s one issue but here he’s totally throwing up a red herring:"

  “So how does any of that cause us to discount or dismiss the contributions of This Time Is Different? You tell me.”

   "No one is trying to do that, certainly not Krugman who says that while the paper was sloppy the book remains a book of very high quality."

   This sets Sumner off:

   "Mike Sax, Isn’t it kind of silly to post comments on things you know nothing about? If you can refute Hamilton, do so."

    "If it’s “not surprising” that the eurocrisis happened, why did Krugman say it was unlikely to happen a few years back?"

    It's disappointing but not surprising that Sumner totally sidestepped my question-and resorted to a cheap shot; how can he claim Krugman is guilty of cheap shots?- as Tom Brown also pointed out. It's not at all tough to refute Hamilton who makes it sound as if Krugman has somehow used the errors of the R-R paper to discredit their paper. Yet Krugman has been very clear that the book is not discredited. Of course Sumner has no answer for it. Tom pointed this out:

    "@ssumner, I read the Hamilton piece, and your piece, and Mike Sax… and it looks like Mike did read the Hamilton piece as well (in his 2nd comment). I think you’re dismissing Sax’s point a little to flippantly: Hamilton IS saying “how can you say R&R’s book is bad based on the error in their paper!” … When nobody’s saying that actually (thus Sax’s “red herring” comment)."

   "Also I don’t see Hamilton’s point in minimizing R&R’s error. R&R may never have claimed there was causality concerning their erroneous “90% rule” in their paper… but it appears they did say it in testimony before congress."

    Of course, Sumner in true form, ignores the points that Tom makes:

    "Tom, Hamilton showed that the error had only small impact on their empirical findings. Do you deny that? Where is Hamilton wrong?"

     "You said;

     “Hamilton IS saying “how can you say R&R’s book is bad based on the error in their paper!””

     "Can you produce the exact quotation?"

     Yes, Scott we can as Tom did and you of course didn't answer:

     "How about Hamilton’s last sentence, for one:

     “So how does any of that cause us to discount or dismiss the contributions of This Time Is Different? You tell me.”

     "Huh? Who’s complaining about their book, “This Time Is Different?” The complaint has always been with their subsequent paper!"

     "In fact, it’s not just the last line, Hamilton spends over 50% of his post discussing their book."

    With as much as conservatives like Sumner are always whining about Krugman's alleged disrespect, he and Hamilton are proving out Krugman's recent complaint that these conservatives are mainly fools and/or knaves. 

      http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/knaves-fools-and-me-meta/

      Regarding the excel error what Hamilton is doing-and Sumner is following him on-is trying to whitewash R-R's error. Basically to hear Hamilton tell it this is little more than a rounding error. Yet listen to what Miles Kimball who himself has been an R-R apologist says:

      "Ken Rogoff is an economist who has always been kind to me, and for whom I have deep respect. And I have no animus toward Carmen Reinhart. Nevertheless, I hope there has been a nightmarish quality to the last few days of what Quartz writer Matt Phillips called a “bone-crunching social media pile-on that Harvard economists Ken Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart received in recent days after some other researchers questioned their influential findings that high government debt is a drag on economic growth.” I say this because I know from my own experience as a researcher how powerfully the hint of such an embarrassment motivates economists and other researchers to sweat the details to get things right. Some errors will always slip through the cracks, but a researcher ought to live in mortal fear of a contretemps like that Reinhart and Rogoff have found themselves in this week.”

     “Reinhart and Rogoff have not only caused embarrassment for themselves, but also for all those who have in any way relied on their results. Those who made their case by overinterpreting the particular results that have now been discredited should be the most embarrassed. Quartz’s Tim Fernholz gives a rundown of politicians and other policy makers who relied heavily on Reinhart and Rogoff’s results in “How influential was the Reinhart and Rogoff study warning that high debt kills growth?”

     http://qz.com/76447/an-economists-mea-culpa-i-relied-on-rogoff-and-reinhart/

  

     If the error is so trivial how does he explain Miles’ mea culpa?

    Even though Hamilton and Scott and a few other R-R apologists will try to whitewash this most economists aren’t buying it. They have a big black eye and Hamilton certainly won’t be able to save them.