Organizations and Markets

Greif Under Fire Again

13 August 2009 at 11:46 pm Peter G. Klein 1 comment

| Peter Klein |

We noted previously Jeremy Edwards and Sheilagh Ogilvie’s challenge to Avner Greif, contenting that he misread his primary source material, and Greif’s response. Now Charles Rowley has published a paper in Public Choice accusing Greif of academic dishonesty, namely by failing to cite Janet Landa’s prior work on the economics of identity and trust:

This commentary demonstrates that Avner Greif, through his citation practices, has denied Janet Landa her full intellectual property rights with respect to her contributions to the economic analysis of trust and identity. He has done so by systematically failing to cite her published papers in this field, incidentally promoting his own publications as meriting priority. In consequence, he has effectively blocked out Janet Landa’s work from the mainstream economics literature, albeit not from the literature of law and economics, where his own writings have not been directed.

It’s an odd piece. I’m not sufficiently familiar with Landa’s work to evaluate its place in the history of thought in this area, or to judge whether Greif has appropriated her ideas without attribution. Rowley doesn’t accuse Greif of plagiarism, only of failing to cite an important predecessor and overstating the novelty of his own work. This is a difficult claim to substantiate; obviously the evaluation of prior contributions in one’s own area is highly subjective. And the implication (later in the piece) that Greif’s citation practices contributed to his Genius Award seems like a cheap shot. It is true, however, that contemporary economists tend to be woefully ignorant of the history of economic thought (and, as Rowley implies, that game theorists have what might be called a “healthy sense of self”).

Update: I missed earlier discussions of the Rowley piece at Monkey Cage and Crooked Timber. The Monkey Cage commentary is disappointing, mostly ad hominem snarks at Rowley, the field of public choice, and (most bizarre, but it’s Brad Delong), the Mont Pelerin Society. Henry’s analysis at Crooked Timber is more serious, and I think he gets it right.

Entry filed under: - Klein -, Institutions, Law and Economics, New Institutional Economics, People.