Plagiarism and its Impact on the Economics Profession

Abstract

This paper integrates survey data on economists' experiences and perceptions of plagiarism with a game-theoretic model of author strategies to investigate whether information is being efficiently transmitted within the profession. The surveys reveal editorial misperceptions of the nature of plagiarism (e.g., plagiarism versus copyright infringement) and narrow assumptions about who bears the cost of plagiarism. Further, a wide disparity in author strategies to protect intellectual property rights exists, due to uncertainty over editorial response. These considerations are shown to lead to a Pareto-dominated publication process. By contrast, simple measures such as a code of ethics and web-based anti-plagiarism software can improve the flow of information.