It would be interesting to know how much you think Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff's "Growth in a time of Debt" has shaped economies & changed lives of people worldwide over the last three years.
Other economists have repeatedly criticised this work since its release in January 2010 & this has been fiercely debated over the last three years. That hasn't stopped politicians from quoting and basing their economic policies on this research paper, primarily due to the credentials of the authors.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22223190
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/19/opinion/krugman-the-excel-depression.html?ref=paulkrugman&_r=0
And now these rows and columns are used in spreadsheets processing billions of dollars of trades - often wrongly, as seen in the London Whale incident. But spreadsheets don't cheat people. People cheat people.
