Reinhart, Rogoff rip high-profile Romney economists for “gross misinterpretations of the facts.”»

The economists behind one of the most-influential books of the post-crisis era publicly rebutted analysis produced by allies of Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, decrying what they called "gross misinterpretations of the facts." Harvard professors Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff — whose book “This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly” details the historical linkages between banking crises, government debt and economic growth — criticized work by prominent conservative economists such as Columbia's Glenn Hubbard and Stanford's John Taylor, both Romney advisors. The Harvard professors took issue with suggestions that the US historically bounced back from financial crises more quickly than other economies. "We well appreciate that during elections, academic economists sometimes become advocates. It is entirely reasonable for a scholar, in that role, to try to argue that a candidate has a better economic program that will benefit the country in the future," Reinhart and Rogoff wrote. "But when it comes to assessing U.S. financial history, the license for advocacy becomes more limited, and we have to take issue with gross misinterpretations of the facts."