IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/jss/jstsof/v034i04.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On the Numerical Accuracy of Spreadsheets

Author

Listed:
  • Almiron, Marcelo G.
  • Lopes, Bruno
  • Oliveira, Alyson L. C.
  • Medeiros, Antonio C.
  • Frery, Alejandro C.

Abstract

This paper discusses the numerical precision of five spreadsheets (Calc, Excel, Gnumeric, NeoOffice and Oleo) running on two hardware platforms (i386 and amd64) and on three operating systems (Windows Vista, Ubuntu Intrepid and Mac OS Leopard). The methodology consists of checking the number of correct significant digits returned by each spreadsheet when computing the sample mean, standard deviation, first-order autocorrelation, F statistic in ANOVA tests, linear and nonlinear regression and distribution functions. A discussion about the algorithms for pseudorandom number generation provided by these platforms is also conducted. We conclude that there is no safe choice among the spreadsheets here assessed: they all fail in nonlinear regression and they are not suited for Monte Carlo experiments.

Suggested Citation

  • Almiron, Marcelo G. & Lopes, Bruno & Oliveira, Alyson L. C. & Medeiros, Antonio C. & Frery, Alejandro C., 2010. "On the Numerical Accuracy of Spreadsheets," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 34(i04).
    • Handle: RePEc:jss:jstsof:v:034:i04
    DOI: http://hdl.handle.net/10.18637/jss.v034.i04
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.jstatsoft.org/index.php/jss/article/view/v034i04/v34i04.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.jstatsoft.org/index.php/jss/article/downloadSuppFile/v034i04/v34i04-spreadsheets.zip
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/http://hdl.handle.net/10.18637/jss.v034.i04?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yalta, A. Talha, 2007. "The Numerical Reliability of GAUSS 8.0," The American Statistician, American Statistical Association, vol. 61, pages 262-268, August.
    2. A. Talha Yalta & A. Yasemin Yalta, 2007. "GRETL 1.6.0 and its numerical accuracy," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(4), pages 849-854.
    3. A. Talha Yalta, 2010. "The Accuracy of Statistical Distributions in Microsoft (R) Excel 2007," Working Papers 1006, TOBB University of Economics and Technology, Department of Economics.
    4. McCullough, B. D., 2000. "Is it safe to assume that software is accurate?," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 349-357.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. H.-J. Sun & Kaoru Fukuda & B. D. McCullough, 2017. "Inaccurate regression coefficients in Microsoft Excel 2003: an investigation of Volpi’s “zero bug”," Computational Statistics, Springer, vol. 32(4), pages 1411-1421, December.
    2. Varma, Jayanth R. & Virmani, Vineet, 2017. "Shiny Alternative for Finance in the Classroom," IIMA Working Papers WP 2017-03-05, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Research and Publication Department.
    3. Guy Mélard, 2014. "On the accuracy of statistical procedures in Microsoft Excel 2010," Computational Statistics, Springer, vol. 29(5), pages 1095-1128, October.
    4. Sun, Tien-Lung & Lo, Kuo-Hung & Chen, Juei-Chao, 2016. "An accurate updating formula to calculate sample variance from weighted successive differences," Statistics & Probability Letters, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 14-19.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. A. Yalta & A. Yalta, 2010. "Should Economists Use Open Source Software for Doing Research?," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 35(4), pages 371-394, April.
    2. Yalta, A. Talha & Jenal, Olaf, 2009. "On the importance of verifying forecasting results," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 62-73.
    3. McCullough, B.D., 2008. "Special section on Microsoft Excel 2007," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 52(10), pages 4568-4569, June.
    4. Ignacio Díaz-Emparanza & Petr Mariel & María Victoria Esteban (ed.), 2009. "Econometrics with gretl. Proceedings of the gretl Conference 2009," UPV/EHU Books, Universidad del País Vasco - Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales, edition 1, number 01.
    5. Oluwarotimi O. Odeh & Allen M. Featherstone & Jason S. Bergtold, 2010. "Reliability of Statistical Software," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1472-1489.
    6. A. Talha Yalta & A. Yasemin Yalta, 2009. "Wilkinson Tests and gretl," EHUCHAPS, in: Ignacio Díaz-Emparanza & Petr Mariel & María Victoria Esteban (ed.), Econometrics with gretl. Proceedings of the gretl Conference 2009, edition 1, chapter 16, pages 243-251, Universidad del País Vasco - Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales.
    7. Thomas Mayer, 2006. "The Empirical Significance of Econometric Models," Working Papers 620, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    8. Kusters, Ulrich & McCullough, B.D. & Bell, Michael, 2006. "Forecasting software: Past, present and future," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 599-615.
    9. Keeling, Kellie B. & Pavur, Robert J., 2007. "A comparative study of the reliability of nine statistical software packages," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 51(8), pages 3811-3831, May.
    10. Evanschitzky, Heiner & Armstrong, J. Scott, 2010. "Replications of forecasting research," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 4-8, January.
    11. Lee C. Adkins, 2011. "Monte Carlo Experiments Using gretl: A Primer," Economics Working Paper Series 1103, Oklahoma State University, Department of Economics and Legal Studies in Business.
    12. repec:jss:jstsof:34:i04 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Thomas Mayer, 2009. "Honesty and Integrity in Economics," Working Papers 160, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    14. Charles G. Renfro, 2009. "The Practice of Econometric Theory," Advanced Studies in Theoretical and Applied Econometrics, Springer, number 978-3-540-75571-5, July-Dece.
    15. A. Talha Yalta & Riccardo Lucchetti, 2008. "The GNU|Linux platform and freedom respecting software for economists," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(2), pages 279-286.
    16. Yalta, A. Talha, 2007. "The Numerical Reliability of GAUSS 8.0," The American Statistician, American Statistical Association, vol. 61, pages 262-268, August.
    17. Armstrong, J. Scott & Fildes, Robert, 2006. "Making progress in forecasting," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 433-441.
    18. Thomas Mayer, 2009. "Honesty and Integrity in Economics," Working Papers 92, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    19. Yalta, A. Talha, 2008. "The accuracy of statistical distributions in Microsoft® Excel 2007," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 52(10), pages 4579-4586, June.
    20. A. Talha Yalta, 2010. "The Accuracy of Statistical Distributions in Microsoft (R) Excel 2007," Working Papers 1006, TOBB University of Economics and Technology, Department of Economics.
    21. Boylan, John E. & Goodwin, Paul & Mohammadipour, Maryam & Syntetos, Aris A., 2015. "Reproducibility in forecasting research," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 79-90.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:jss:jstsof:v:034:i04. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christopher F. Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.jstatsoft.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.