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.
Apropos of my post on citation bias comes this new paper by C.K. Rowley (gated; ungated). I know nothing of this literature and cannot evaluate Rowley’s argument. I simply note that I have rarely seen such an argument made.
Here are related webpages for each party: Rowley, Greif, and Landa. Here is more about another dispute involving Greif’s work.
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What a disgusting piece by Rowley.
(I’m a political scientist, I don’t have any stake in this “fight”)
He misstates (and probably doesn’t get?) what Greif’s contributions are and why people admire his work (obviously people _talked_ of trust before, but he was able to elegantly introduce it into a framework that mainstream economist could relate to), his tone is arrogant and snotty and the fact that he is part of the public choice crowd – perhaps the most (citation) incestuous bunch of economists around.
And also: If every time an economist writes something related to politics and doesn’t cite all the people in polisci who have expressed similar ideas we’d make such a brouhaha we wouldn’t get anything else done.
What a jerk.
I agree with Sebastian. The notion that citing someone less often than they’d prefer to be cited is some kind of violation of norms, or, worse, some kind of intellectual property violation is just ridiculous. And accusing Avner Greif of intentionally not citing someone for improper reasons (as opposed to good faith judgment about the importance of the work) is crazy: he’s a brilliant scholar and, I can say from personal experience, a really great guy whose intellectual honesty is beyond reproach.
Well, that is bizarre.
Crowley’s beef with Avner is that that Avner doesn’t cite Landa but that he doesn’t cite Landa *enough*.
IMHO, you shouldn’t have put this up–the fact that Crowley is a member of the Mont Pelerin society should have served as a warning flag that you should double and triple check before you take anything they say at face value.
Another issue: Rowley is the editor of Public Choice and published this as an editorial comment in that journal. Is this a proper and ethical use of such an outlet?
Well, he hasn’t really published anywhere else for the last 9 years…
Seriously John – I understand GMU loyalty and everything, but like Brad I don’t get why you gave this piece of junk any more exposure, and you guys must know that some (!) of the GMU econ faculty are a bit wacko…
It has been pointed out to me that, ahem, there is a difference between GWU and GMU. my apologies to the former…
Oh but Sebastian, you do have a stake in the fight as a political scientist (unless you are a public choice political scientist). Charles Rowley has publicly noted that political scientists who have failed to embrace public choice are “scholars who had rendered themselves dependent on the subsidies of big government and whose lucrative careers in many instances were linked to advising … agents of the compound republic.” See his intro to the Edward Elgar Public Choice reader.
Wow.
I remember Mancur Olson begging me to come write in Public Choice, saying: “It doesn’t have to be just right-wing wackos. It can have two healthy wings. All I need is a few to join me…”
fwiw I have actually published in Public Choice, and have a fair amount of respect for the North American editor, Mike Munger, at least (he may be a wild-eyed libertarian who ran for Governor of North Carolina, but he ran on a platform that was decidedly to the left of the Democratic candidate). This piece, however …
Good point Henry. I’d add to this that the survival of wacko pubic choice is critical as one of the most beloved strawmen of political scientists…
Even more so, if all economist were like Avner, what would economic sociologists do?
http://crookedtimber.org/2009/06/22/economics-as-sociologys-other/#more-11670
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