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More reasons not to use Excel for modeling

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As if the London Whale nearly bankrupting Chase Bank wasn't lesson enough, we now hear that an Excel error impacted the conclusions of a major economics paper that influenced the recent austerity policies in the US, UK and elsewhere. Matt Frost says enough is enough, and implores to everyone to stop using error-prone point-and-click tools, and instead use a reproducible scripting language — namely, the R language — for serious statistical analysis:

The slides are awesome, I just wish there was video of the live presentation. My favourite lines from the deck:

"I'm not a programmer!"

"You're not an accountant either, but you seem to use a lot of spreadsheets."

Check out Matt's presentation below, and share it with your spreadsheet-using friends to prevent more formula disasters.

Matt Frost: Stop Clicking, Start Typing (via the author)

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