The case of Dutch social psychologist Diederik Stapel fraud, now in the news, which led to the retraction of several of his papers by academic journals suggests that this might be the right course of action for the American Economic Review (AER). Even if Reinhart and Rogoff's (RR) results do not necessarily amount to fraud, something that I'm sure could become a matter of dispute, it's still a fact that they are incorrect, as admitted by the authors. So the AER should clear the record and retract the paper that suggests that growth collapses when a country has a debt-to-GDP ratio of more than 90%.
PS: As the NYTimes notes there is a blog about scientific papers that are retracted here. The blog dealt with RR case here.
PS: As the NYTimes notes there is a blog about scientific papers that are retracted here. The blog dealt with RR case here.
