Mark Thornton

“We were quite surprised to learn many weeks later that our comment had been rejected by Applied Economics. The editor sent us two referee reports. Neither of the reports dealt directly with our primary comment, and both were defensive of the Barr, Mizrach, and Mundra paper.[7] We noticed that in one of the reports, the referee identifies himself as one of the authors of the Barr, Mizrach, and Mundra paper, writing, “It is hard to reject a comment that agrees with your paper.” However, he managed to fight that urge and did reject our comment. It is not unheard of to send an author of an article a comment on their paper to referee, but it does seem odd to give them veto rights without the editor having read the paper and comment, which seems obvious in this case.

It is no embarrassment for a journal to publish a flawed paper. It happens on a regular basis. It is part of the academic process. For example, new econometric techniques have brought into question many early empirical papers. Hundreds of papers have been written on the Phillips Curve, and no doubt many are mistaken and now irrelevant. In the case of Barr, Mizrach, and Mundra, their paper is actually not wrong per se; they just came to the wrong conclusions based on their evidence. Even their secondary evidence could be salvageable. This experience provides a clear window into the messy world of academic publishing.”
― Mark Thornton, La maldición de los rascacielos

“(...) The people most involved in the bubble are confident, jubilant, and self-assured by their apparently successful decision making. When the bubble bursts they lose confidence, go into despair and lose confidence in their decision making. In fact, they lose confidence in the “system,” which means they lose confidence in capitalism and become susceptible to new political “reforms” that offer structure and security in exchange for some of their autonomy and freedoms,

In this manner, great nations of people have given away their liberties in exchange for security...”
― Mark Thornton, La maldición de los rascacielos