Didn't know about the Reinhart-Rogoff controversy [0], interesting! They state that they have been careful not to claim that high debt causes slow growth, but rather that it has an “association” with slow growth.
I read abt this quite a bit, the refutation is attacking a small portion of the data, because that small portion is trendy and hot in politics.
Judging academically, the original paper and the refuting paper is a healthy debate, but the dynamic of the society and politics ab-use them to attack a whole school of thought at large (the austrian school: less bailout, less intervention by government, less control over everything) in favor of keynesian school (more bailout, more government spending, more public debt, especially in recession and crisis).
Anyway, it remains a controversy, because theoretically one can do what one wants, but once it involves policy and real life matters, it is hard to argue for what method is right and what is wrong, in the presence of so many (ready to b angry) interest groups.
Excuse me? That single attacked paper was the intellectual blanket for an unprecedented victory march of the Austrian school after the financial crisis and the recession.
I agree that from a purely academic point of view this is nothing big to worry about, but this paper played a completely outsized role. And the authors stood by and let things run their course, without any attempt to reign in or moderate the debate.
Fair enough, but i add that academic life is sad, one has to pursue one's endeavor at one's own cost. However, politicians and the public want too much from us researchers. So sometimes, we do believe that our sweating formulas have life impact, or to fancy, save the world.
[0] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/16/reinhart-rogoff-aus...