Of course not, almost none of the significant disagreement in the broad public debate on policy is about details of quantitative analysis, it's about value propositions that frame (among other questions) what quantitative analysis is even relevant.
If you publish an academic paper with quantitative analysis, academics will tear into the details of analysis (maybe, if the fact question it addresses is considered important to other people in the field.) If you publish a work aimed at a popular audience and intended as policy advocacy, and it's full of heavy quantitative analysis, you haven't understood the domain you are operating in.
Long-form heavily analytical work does have a role in informing policy debates, but that role is in wonkish intrafactional debates among policy types within the group that already agrees with you on values.
> If you publish an academic paper with quantitative analysis, academics will tear into the details of analysis
This is how it should work, but at least in the type of fields that we're talking about here, in practice this doesn't happen. I've published seminal papers in my field which have been cited hundereds of times. Not even the peer reviewers (let alone any reader) double checked my calculations.
If it's publish or perish, double checking numbers of a paper will help you do the latter much more than the former.
As will, incidentally, spending too much time on any software you need to develop. Like, say, unit tests or ensuring it's maintainable. Or maintaining it at all, really.
"They tweak standard return calculations to get another publication – then move on with their lives."
I will go even as far as to say that the quantitative does not matter. Or more specifically, it is there only to provide an excuse for promoting a specific agenda. It is depressing, but this is where we are.
Of course not, almost none of the significant disagreement in the broad public debate on policy is about details of quantitative analysis, it's about value propositions that frame (among other questions) what quantitative analysis is even relevant.
If you publish an academic paper with quantitative analysis, academics will tear into the details of analysis (maybe, if the fact question it addresses is considered important to other people in the field.) If you publish a work aimed at a popular audience and intended as policy advocacy, and it's full of heavy quantitative analysis, you haven't understood the domain you are operating in.
Long-form heavily analytical work does have a role in informing policy debates, but that role is in wonkish intrafactional debates among policy types within the group that already agrees with you on values.