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Please read the general guidelines and evaluation rubric.

For this particular paper, I suggest you take a look at the following checklist:

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Download Herndon, Ash & Pollin (2014)

1. Research Question & Purpose

• [ ] Have we stated the central question?

  → Did Reinhart & Rogoff’s original findings (90% threshold) hold up when their data and methods are replicated?

• [ ] Have we explained why replication was important?

  → The original result had major policy influence (austerity debates).

2. Data & Coding Evaluation

• [ ] Have we described what data the authors obtained from Reinhart & Rogoff?

• [ ] Have we explained the coding error in the spreadsheet?

  (Omitting five countries from the >90% category.)

• [ ] Have we mentioned the selective exclusion of country-years?

• [ ] Have we discussed the weighting method (country averages instead of year averages)?

  → Does one country-year count the same as another?

3. Replication of Numerical Results

• [ ] Have we shown how R&R’s original mean growth at >90% debt (−0.1%) becomes +2.2% after correction?
• [ ] Have we noted that median results also change significantly?
• [ ] Have we explained that no sharp “cliff” at 90% appears after correction?
• [ ] Have we emphasized how different analytical choices affect results?

4. Visual Interpretation

• [ ] Have we shown the corrected graphs/charts?