Capital In The Twenty-First Century author Thomas Piketty is in some hot water, having been exposed for a series of data problems and even data manipulation by a thorough investigation published in the Financial Times. You may recall that Piketty’s book has been called a “Das Kapital” for the 21st century, heralded by the likes of such leftist lights as Paul Krugman and Joe Stiglitz. But his sweeping conclusions regarding inequality were suspect even before the new revelations; many have noted that his conclusions don’t really follow from the data he presents. Now the data itself looks fudged; when corrected, PIketty’s results do not hold up. 

The author of the blog linked above, Pejman Yousefzadeh, is pretty tough on Piketty, and I’m inclined to say he deserves it based only on his advocacy of a destructive wealth tax. Tyler Cowen urges more restraint. Cowen’s first report on the matter is here.