No one cared about my spreadsheets
econlib.org
No one cared about my spreadsheets
1–10 of 413 posts
Re: No one cared about my spreadsheets
#2For anyone looking for a statistical analysis auditing challenge: the author links to an article[1] where they made the spreadsheets in question (questioning the return-on-investment from education) public.
A collaborative auditing effort could involve some further documentation of what the origin datasources mean, how the sheets process and transform that information, and how to interpret the results produced.
[1] - https://www.econlib.org/archives/2014/06/embarrass_me_no.htm...
Re: No one cared about my spreadsheets
#3For anyone looking for a statistical analysis auditing challenge: the author links to an article[1] where they made the spreadsheets in question (questioning the return-on-investment from education) public. A collaborative auditing effort could involve some further documentation of what the origin datasources mean, how the sheets process and transform that information, and how to interpret the results produced. [1] -…
(see also this comment that reads like it could be onto something, although it'd require a bit of digging to determine what that is, if anything: https://www.econlib.org/archives/2014/06/embarrass_me_no.htm...)
Re: No one cared about my spreadsheets
#4The author posted his spreadsheets at http://www.bcaplan.com/returns.htm
Re: No one cared about my spreadsheets
#5Bryan's boss weighed in on this today:
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/02/no...
He says the education researchers who might audit this don't because Bryan is an outsider in that field.
Re: No one cared about my spreadsheets
#6Just my dumb opinion here, but... there's something extremely implausible on its face about the idea that a sufficiently complex spreadsheet could calculate the difference in value generated from kids going to school versus kids not going to school.
If people could be convinced that this was something more than a castle in the sky, maybe it would get more attention.
I imagine a bunch of academics put their fingers to the wind and made wild guesstimates, and Caplan took it all very literally as some sort of sound foundation to evaluate education as a whole.
I mean jeez, what did he even compare our status quo education system against? Where did the kids go in the counterfactual no-education scenario? Did the kids all go home to an infinite supply of stay-at-home moms? Did they go to extended daycare, all the way up to age 18? What did they do with all that time?
Re: No one cared about my spreadsheets
#7Has anyone here read the book? I have a hard time imagining that a technical education (e.g. engineering, physics, forestry, chemistry) would be worthless if someone wants to work in that field.
Social sciences however... but of course I'm biased there.
Re: No one cared about my spreadsheets
#8Just my dumb opinion here, but... there's something extremely implausible on its face about the idea that a sufficiently complex spreadsheet could calculate the difference in value generated from kids going to school versus kids not going to school. If people could be convinced that this was something more than a castle in the sky, maybe it would get more attention. I imagine a bunch of academics put their fingers to…
Well, is it calculable? If yes, then a sufficiently complex spreadsheet ought to be able to do the job.
However with no auditing, we don’t know whether Brian’s did, or even approached the level of complexity needed to in his calculations. He tried to bring math to a subject that is typically argued through rhetoric and that’s respectable enough.
Re: No one cared about my spreadsheets
#9Just my dumb opinion here, but... there's something extremely implausible on its face about the idea that a sufficiently complex spreadsheet could calculate the difference in value generated from kids going to school versus kids not going to school. If people could be convinced that this was something more than a castle in the sky, maybe it would get more attention. I imagine a bunch of academics put their fingers to…
On a certain level I might agree.
On the other hand, I think it's a reasonable point that if we disagree with him, go find the parameter he's chosen wrongly or forgotten, since it must exist somewhere if he's wrong.
On the third hand, that's probably unfairly much to ask of your audience, since it requires auditing work that took a year.
Re: No one cared about my spreadsheets
#10If you want people to look at your work (of any sort) it has to be at least marginally reader approachable. Novel thinking wrapped in a huge ball of spreadsheets isn’t that. Per authors own words it takes whole day author guided tour to get through it.