As the editors of HER when the Hall and Hart paper was published, we would like to express concern about the direction of recent posts pertaining to that article.  Referees are soft targets, yet they play an invaluable role. In particular, editors and submitting authors rely extensively on the frank and fearless advice they receive from reports based on blind peer reviews.  As much respect as possible should therefore be shown to a referee's opinions when discussing the matter in the open-cry market. We certainly do not want to put referees in the position where they feel obliged to identify themselves in the public domain.  If a referee does decide to publically identify himself or herself, we think that the need for restraint (and a certain lightness of touch) is even greater.  Putting pressure on referees to clarify anything related to their decisions in a public forum is also problematic. We therefore suggest that any future discussion about the wisdom of blind refereeing be restricted (predominantly) to the general and that contributors to such a discussion refrain (where possible) from particular cases of a referee rejecting or accepting a paper. This is our humble opinion and contributors to the shoe-list may, of course, take it or leave it.  
 
As a concluding note, we also suggest that, given the proliferation of HET journals over the last 20 years, the problem of a systematic bias towards a given intellectual position has been reduced (but definitely not eliminated). Each journal relies on a different stable of referees and a different network of contacts, so if one is pilled from one journal, one simply re-submits to another journal. This may very well have happened in the case of the Hart and Hart article. If an idea is any good, it usually (but not always) gets air-time somewhere, and, indeed, given the amount of coverage that this particular article has received on the shoe-list, sometimes a lot of air-time. Having stated this, we do not have any strong views on the intellectual position taken in the said journal article. There is also obviously scope for a reply to any given article in any given journal after the normal refereeing process has been completed.   
 
Michael McLure and Gregory Moore (ex-editors of HER).


-----Original Message-----
From: Societies for the History of Economics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Robert Leeson
Sent: Wednesday, 30 April 2014 3:15 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SHOE] Leeson on Hall and Hart, refereeing

1. To avoid personalisation, a proposal about the costs and benefits of anonymous refereeing will follow under a separate heading.

2. “Paul Samuelson asked me when we were looking at these diagrams (of inflation and unemployment) for the first time, ‘Does that look like a reversible relation to you?’ What he meant was ‘Do you really think the economy can move back and forth along a curve like that?’ And I answered ‘Yeah I’m inclined to believe it,’ and Paul said ‘Me too’” (Solow cited by Leeson 1997. The Political Economy of the Inflation Unemployment Trade-Off. HOPE Spring, 29.1: 117-156).

3. The Hall and Hart estimated curve looks nothing like the SSPC. 

4. If there is a "mistake" (or mistakes) in an influential paper, it should be discussed in the public domain. 

5. If there is a competent econometric response to H and H, that too should be published. 
    
6. If James was not recommending rejection, then the cited excerpt has been misunderstood. Could he clarify?

 
----- Original Message -----
From: "James Forder" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Monday, 28 April, 2014 9:18:20 AM
Subject: [SHOE] Leeson on Hall and Hart, refereeing

Well, that raises the temperature. 

Two points to consider. First, Robert says that the AER published a downward-sloping curve, ‘although the data suggests an upward-sloping relationship’. If one is interested in the simple relationship between inflation and unemployment, Samuelson and Solow’s data for the postwar period suggest a downward-sloping curve more or less as they drew it. (This is obvious from the chart on their page 188). The Hall and Hart point is subtler and result arises from a multiple regression rather than the simple inflation-unemployment relation.

Second, we have Robert writing:

‘The HER referee admits that Samuelson and Solow "made a mistake" and, therefore, ... the issue must not be raised in print?’ 

Here, Robert has taken three words from the source, incorporated them into a sentence saying something quite different from the original, and appended a conclusion which is nothing whatever to do with anything in the quotation - *nothing whatever* to do with it.

Perhaps at this stage I had better declare that I am the referee whose report has so offended Robert (although I wrote ‘principal problem’ :)). I wonder whether Robert could address three points:

1. From what does Robert form the impression that I thought the issue ‘must not be raised in print’?

2. My report suggests (not ‘admits’, if you please) that Samuelson and Solow made a mistake, but not the mistake suggested by Hall and Hart. Robert surely does not mean that if we see one mistake we should support the publication of papers alleging other, different, ones. But then, what does he mean to suggest?

3. As I understood Rich Hart’s post, he was reporting that a referee had drawn attention to an apparent weakness in the paper, and the authors had incorporated a footnote to address it. Evidently the paper was then published. What deficiency does Robert detect in this process?

I wonder whether the explanation is just that Robert’s email was overhasty and he would now like to apologize for it. If so, I would like to have that apology. But if not, I hope he will respond to these points in a way that will make it possible for us to understand what it is that justifies his post.

James
[log in to unmask]

On 22 Apr 2014, at 05:53, Robert Leeson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Clarification please.
> 
> The journal of the American Economic Association published a highly policy-influential - hand-drawn - downward-sloping curve, although the data suggests an upward-sloping relationship. 
> 
> The HER referee admits that Samuelson and Solow "made a mistake" and, therefore, ... the issue must not be raised in print? 
> 
> In this instance (as in many others) the costs of referee anonymity outweighs the benefits: shouldn't the referee explain this logic?    
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "William R (Rich) Hart" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Sent: Tuesday, 22 April, 2014 1:05:47 AM
> Subject: Re: [SHOE] Samuelson and Solow on the Phillips curve
> 
> In response to Robert Dimand.
> 
> We estimated the Samuelson and Solow Phillips curve (SSPC) over the 25 
> year period 1934 to 1958 because Samuelson and Solow (1960, 192, 
> Figure 2) state in the caption to their hand-drawn Phillips curve: 
> “…roughly estimated from the last twenty-five years of American data.”  
> They did not say ‘…roughly estimated from the last twenty-five years 
> of American data excluding the war years.’ So, in the first instance, 
> we included the war years because Samuelson and Solow seemingly included the war years.
> 
> Second, Dimand claims we ignored problems with the WWII data in our 
> HER paper despite this having been brought to our attention in referee 
> comments at another journal. We were well aware of the problems with 
> the WWII data (who isn’t?) just as Samuelson and Solow were surely 
> aware. We did not ignore this issue (see below) so much as we 
> considered it irrelevant to the main purpose of our paper. Our paper 
> was not about data problems or about what data Samuelson and Solow 
> should or should not have used in their ‘estimate’ of the Phillips 
> curve (hence, what data we should or should not have used in our 
> estimate). The primary purpose of our paper was much less 
> ambitious—-it was to answer a simple question: in 1959-60 could 
> Samuelson and Solow, using the data they said they used and employing 
> simple, straightforward econometric techniques available at the time, 
> produce the Phillips curve they claimed as fitting the data over the 
> twenty-five year period 1934 to 1958? Our answer was no, a resounding 
> no. Given that the SSPC paper is one of the most widely read and widely cited papers in the profession, one would think our results would/should be of interest to
> economic historians.    
> 
> More directly to Dimand’s claim that we ignored problems with the WWII 
> data in our HER paper, he is correct if by ignore he means we did not 
> re-estimate the SSPC over the 1934 to 1958 period excluding the war 
> years. We did not do this. However, it is incorrect to claim that we totally ignored the WWII
> data problems.   
> 
> One HER referee recommended rejection because:
> 
> "The principle problem is this. In their scatter plot of data on page 
> 188, Samuelson and Solow have circled 13 points (it is not clear 
> exactly how many there are) and said that the circled points are ones from 'recent years'.
> It is visually pretty obvious that the hand drawn Phillips curve on 
> page 192, although described as based on 25 years, is in fact based on 
> the circled points. .... My conclusion is that Samuelson and Solow 
> made a mistake in the way they described the hand-drawn curve. They 
> did not in fact use 25 years of data, they used 13, and their hand 
> drawn curve is about right."
> 
> In response to this comment, we re-estimated the SSPC over the period 
> 1947- 1958.  As we discuss in footnote 16 of the HER paper, the 
> re-estimated SSPC (that excludes WWII data) still does NOT fit the 
> hand-drawn SSPC. The re- estimated SSPC, like the Phillips curve 
> estimated over the twenty-five period 1934-1958, is also 
> hump-shaped—-the unemployment rate and inflation move in the same 
> direction for unemployment rates below 4% and move in opposite direction for unemployment rates above 4%.
> 
> Finally, Dimand’s comment brings to mind the many obstacles we faced 
> in getting this paper published. Samuelson and Solow hand-drew a 
> downward- sloping Phillips curve based on a 25-year period that 
> includes WWII and nary a peep of concern. Using their data, we 
> estimate the Phillips curve over the same twenty-five year period in 
> an attempt to replicate their results (using a statistical technique 
> that would be exceedingly difficult to manipulate), find that their results cannot be replicated, and are subject to a barrage
> of criticism.        
>