The FileMakers » Data management – more than just a numbers game

Data management – more than just a numbers game

Posted on 21st May 2013

Data management hit the headlines recently, when an academic paper that has played a significant part of a debate on economic policy during the recession – ‘Growth in a Time of Debt’ – was exposed as flawed. Academics and economists alike were stunned to learn that the problem lay with an error in the data in an Excel spreadsheet.

Many of us assume that a product of an institution as illustrious as Harvard is beyond reproach, but this episode demonstrates that the risks of mishandling data can prove disastrous (and embarrassing) to anyone. When EU commissioner Olli Rehn quoted the 90 per cent debt-to-GDP ratio to support his austerity policy, little did he expect the statistics to be called into question not by arguments around complicated economic theory but by an accident in data arrangement – which could potentially have been prevented by the transparency introduced with database software.

Big data. Big problem?

via The FileMakers » Data management – more than just a numbers game.